“The Terrible Northmen...Sailing on Dragon Ships Like Serpents on the Sea! Shouting a Battle-Cry to Their Awesome God of War, Odin! Mightiest Of Men... Mightiest Of Spectacles... Mightiest Of Motion Pictures!” Those were the taglines used in the ads for the 1958 film- The Vikings, starring Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Ernest Borgnine, and Janet Leigh. A beautiful Technicolor film shot, mostly, on location in Norway. It’s the story of a child born from the rape of an English Queen by a Viking raider, who is raised as a Viking slave. Years later another Viking raid brings a young woman, who was to be married to the current King, to Norway where the Viking’s leader’s son has his eye on the beautiful Englishwoman but it is she and the slave who form a bond. The Slave and the English woman escape to England with the warrior Viking Prince hot on their trail. It all comes to a head in the sacking of the same kingdom where the, now ex, Slave is the true ruler.

    Even though The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s first films as director, this was my first viewing. Having now seen it, it’s pretty obvious that he (really) had just returned from a trip to Berlin, having made a couple of films there. His exposer to German Expressionism is reflected all over this movie. I don’t mean it as a knock, but if I didn’t know anything about Hitchcock, I’d have guessed that The Lodger was made by Murnau or Fritz Lang.

     As a kid in the 1970’s any time a Godzilla movie was on TV I, and my friends, would stop what we were doing, drop to the floor, and watch it. I have no particular recollection of seeing Godzilla Raids Again but may have seen the American release of it- Gigantis the Fire Monster at some point. I can say that this was definitely my first time seeing the original Japanese cut of the film. This was the first follow up to the original Gojira in 1954 and it’s a pretty good film on it’s own.

     Race films were movies made from 1915 through the early 1950’s for an African American audience and starring, for the most part, all African American casts. Most theaters, with some exceptions in northern cities, were for “colored only”, “whites only” or would offer special “race” showings, either as matinees or late night screenings reserved for a black audience. Many films were produced during this time but fewer than one hundred survive today. These films covered all genres- melodrama, comedy, westerns, and musicals, you name it. They were produced by both African American run companies and white owned companies.

     I had not seen this 1953 John Huston directed, Humphrey Bogart starring film, though I did know of it, until now. Like many of Huston’s movies of the late ‘40’s into the ‘50’s, Beat the Devil was shot “on location” in Italy, with some work in Pinewood Studios in the U.K. This film boasts quite a cast too- Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, and Peter Lorre. Looking at the theatrical poster you can tell that the promotions people didn’t know how to publicize this movie. It’s actually a comedy, though a fairly unconventional one for 1953, but the poster shows Bogart punching someone and our two leading ladies in bodice bursting poses. Very “sex and violence”, which it’s really not.

     Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn is a fun musical comedy with one glaringly embarrassing sequence that has not stood the test of time (more on that later). Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire star as entertainers, part of a trio with Lila Dixon (played by Virginia Dale). Both men are in love with her but she is engaged to Crosby’s Jim Hardy who, after the wedding, plans for them to retire from show business right after their Christmas Eve show and run a farm together. However, Lila has fallen for Astaire’s Ted Hanover. She calls off the engagement and goes off with Ted as a pair. Jim still leaves showbiz and moves to his farm. Over the course of the next year Jim realizes that getting up at dawn to run a farm is exhausting and he misses the limelight. At least a little bit. So he decides to make his farm an Inn that is only open on holidays and produce a big show for each celebration. A young aspiring singer/dancer, Linda Mason (Marjorie Reynolds), comes in for an audition and is hired. Promising to do all the holiday shows for the upcoming year. The first Holiday Inn show is Christmas and during rehearsals Jim and Linda have grown closer. Little does Jim know but Lila has walked out on Ted, just before their wedding, and now he has shown up, depressed and drunk, at the Holiday Inn. Ted’s in the market for a new dance, and romantic, partner and begins his plan to get Linda to join him on the road. Over the course of the year Jim has to keep coming up with plans to keep Linda from “paring up’ with Ted.

     I’m not a huge Danny Kaye fan (though I love his voice work in the old holiday special Here Comes Peter Cottontail) so I had some mixed feelings about his 1945 film Wonder Man.  This was only his second lead in a feature film and it does show from time to time.  More on that later.  In Wonder Man Kaye plays twins- Edwin Dingle and Buzzy Bellew.  Buzzy is a comedic nightclub performer while Edwin is a bookish, socially awkward man.  When Buzzy is killed by gangsters after witnessing a murder, his ghost seeks out his brother Edwin to help him set things right. 

     1940’s The Invisible Woman is the third in Universal Studios Invisible Man series and an outlier, being the only installment that never makes reference to any characters from the first film. Also, unlike the others, this entry is played for laughs. It’s an unabashed comedy. A scientist who has been relying on a rich playboy to fund his experiments learns that his cash cow has gone broke, but the two men figure if a machine that can turn a person invisible is proven to work their financial problems will be a thing of the past. The Scientist, Professor Gibbs, places an ad in the newspaper looking for a volunteer for his experiment. The only legitimate response is from a clothing store model who is sick of her treatment by her boss and customers. The experiment is a success, but before the Professor can fetch the playboy the girl leaves the lab in order to get revenge on her boss at the store by scaring the crap out of him. She does return but only in time for the invisibility effect to wear off. They agree that they must repeat the experiment in order to prove it’s success. Only, at the same time, a gangster has sent his thugs to steal the machine so he can use it for nefarious purposes.

     1942’s Cat People is another one of those films that I’ve known about my entire life, but just never got around to seeing.  Now that I’ve seen it, I do have some thoughts.  The film begins with a “meet cute” between Oliver Reed and a young Serbian woman, Irena, at the zoo as she is sketching a black panther.  They begin to date and fall in love.  Irena, however, will not kiss or be intimate with Oliver for fear that she will turn into a big cat and kill him.  At least that is the belief of people of the village where she grew up.  Even without having ever kissed her, Oliver and Irena are married.  Over time Oliver and his best friend from work, Alice, as suspected by Irena, fall in love.  Is Irena out to kill Alice?  Oliver, Alice, and Irena’s Psychiatrist, and friend of Oliver’s, suspect that she is.

    Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory is one of those films I’ve been meaning to see for years, but for whatever reason just hadn’t. It was one of three Kubrick films that I had not seen, Fear and Desire and Barry Lyndon are still on my “to do” list. I’d always heard that it was a great film, one of the best war movies ever made, and it is a terrific film. It’s not the film I thought I was about to watch though. Paths of Glory was released in 1957 and yet I knew so little about its content that it surprised me by being only technically a “war” film, or even as I had heard over the years an “anti-war” movie. I suppose you could call it anti-war, but I found it to be more a statement of bureaucratic corruption.

     So, here’s an interesting one. A movie called “The Monster” starring Lon Chaney, that doesn’t really have a “monster” in it per say, and Chaney, though he has top billing, really isn’t the lead of anyway. 1925’s silent comedy, yes, it’s a comedy… I mean...kinda, The Monster involves a young amateur detective- Johnny (Johnny Arthur), his dapper co-worker in a local shop- Amos, and the girl they both have eyes for- Betty- (Gertrude Olmstead). When a mysterious car crash is discovered but nobody is found an insurance detective comes to town to help find the missing man. The Sheriff and the Detective won’t listen to Johnny when he presents evidence, he found at the scene of the accident that points to a nearby asylum that has been closed for a couple of years. So, he goes to investigate. At the same time, Amos and Betty are headed out on a date when they are also forced into an accident and see lights on at the asylum. They go there in hopes of using their phone and are greeted by a creepy smiley guy who calls himself Dr. Ziska (Lon Chaney). Johnny arrives around the same time. There is a terrible storm outside so the Dr. strongly suggests they stay the night and sets them up in a room. After some stumbling around creepy areas of the house they are captured by the doctor, and his minions, and Betty and Amos are prepared as part of a scientific experiment. Now Johnny has to foil the minions and save his companions.

     This Classics Review is a Roy Rogers Western double feature- Under Western Stars and Billy the Kid Returns. These are Rogers’ first 2 starring roles. Both released in 1938, along with “Come on, Rogers!” and “Shine on Harvest Moon”. These films were designed to be features in Saturday Matinees. There would be a newsreel, an animated short, maybe a live action short or cliffhanger serial, and then a feature or two. These features would rarely run more an hour each and these two Roy Rogers movies each run just under an hour.