1956’s The Black Sleep (re-released in 1962 as Dr. Cadman's Secret) was an excuse to put together stars of Universal horror stars of the ‘30’s and ‘40’s, though one fell through (more on that later).  The film stars Basil Rathbone as a scientist who experiments on living subjects’ brains in order to figure out how to cure his wife who has been in a coma for over a year.  Using an East Indian drug that induces a deathlike state that can be reversed with an antidote if delivered within a few hours.  He saves another scientist from the gallows in order to have him as his assistant with his work.  When the assistant learns that they are actually working on living subjects, he expresses his disapproval.  He also learns that below Rathbone’s scientist’s castle-like home houses former test subjects.  All with different physical and mental issues due to the experiments.  Of course, in the end the scientists plan all comes crashing down around him.

     When it comes to Ingmar Bergman, I find him to be a mixed bag. I love The Seventh Seal, perhaps because it has that fantasy element, but couldn’t get into Fanny and Alexander and Cries & Whispers. Admittedly, those are the only Bergman films I’d seen. I’d always heard that Wild Strawberries was good and one of his more accessible films. Having finally watched it I can say that I did like it, but don’t know if I’d revisit it.

     In 1941’s Caught in the Draft Bob Hope plays a movie star who woos the daughter of an army general (Dorothy Lamour) because the Congress is voting on establishing a national armed forced draft. Of course, he actually does start to fall for her, “she looks like Dorothy Lamour with her clothes on” his character remarks at one point. When the draft is passed, she learns of his original plan and breaks things off. To prove he really does like her he tells her that he will enlist in the army and sets up a friend to play the soldier at the enlistment office and make it look like he is enlisting. His friend gets chased off and the movie star ends up actually enlisting. Basic training antics ensue and, since her father is a General, the girl actually lives on the base. To prove his love for the girl he promises the General he will earn the rank of corporal at the end of training. Being a pampered coward, this is a challenge for him and more antics ensue.

    I like a weird movie once in a while but 1930’s Just Imagine is one of the weirdest flicks I’ve seen. What makes it extra weird is the fact that I don’t believe the people making the movie thought it was weird at all!

      I’m pretty sure I saw 1951’s Captain Horatio Hornblower on television when I was a kid but hadn’t seen it since.  It’s a pretty entertaining film, though some aspects haven’t aged well.  Luckily, the story and performances of the leads keep your interest, even when something not culturally appropriate today hits the screen.  The film takes elements from three of the Hornblower novels by C.S. Forester- The Happy Return, Ship of the Line, and Flying Colours, giving the movie a bit of an episodic feel.  We begin with Gregory Peck’s Hornblower and his crew having traveled to the western coast of Central America to arm a local despot who has agreed to align his kingdom with the English against the Spanish, who the English are at war with.  Things go a little sideways when Hornblower is informed, a little too late, that the English are now teaming up with Spain against France, ruled by Napoleon.  At that time, he is also forced to bring a woman aboard who has been evacuated from Panama who turns out to be the fiancé of another big wig in his majesty’s navy.  After returning to England Hornblower and his crew are sent to join the fight with France.  After a great battle Hornblower and his crew are captured.  He and a couple of his compatriots are sent to Paris for trial.  They escape and wind up posing as Dutch officers to find their way home again.

      I’ve known about the movie A Guy Named Joe since, at least, 1989 when Steven Spielberg’s updated remake “Always” was released. I’ve been wanting to see the original film since then but never really got around to it. I finally did and enjoyed myself. Starring Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne, and Van Johnson, A Guy Named Joe tells the story of an Army Air Corp pilot in World War II who dies on a mission and then put to work in the afterlife as a sort of guardian angel/flight instructor to young pilots in training. Only the young man he is paired with begins a relationship with the dead pilot’s girl.

     So, here’s a holiday set film I had not even heard of…1952’s The Holly and the Ivy.  A London Film Production, directed by George More O’Ferrall and starring Ralph Richardson and a young Denholm Elliott.  The Holly and the Ivy was first produced as a play by Wynyard Browne in 1950 and mostly unfolds over about a 24-hour period as an English clergyman’s family arrives home for the holiday and secrets and resentments all come to light.  The film certainly feels like a play.  There are a few scenes at the beginning introducing some of the family members as they set out for the Reverand’s home in the English countryside that I believe were written for the movie.  Once the action moves to the homestead it feels like very much like a stage play.

     Buzz Aldrin was the second man to step foot on the moon. K2 is the second tallest mountain in the world. Many may know that already, but even more people know that Neil Armstrong was the first man to step foot on the moon and that Everest is the tallest mountain. I’d hazard to guess that the majority of Americans, if asked, know that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first animated feature film. How many would know the second animated feature film? Not many. Well, I’m here to tell you, or remind you, that it was Paramount Pictures and Producer Max Fleischer’s (already well known for the Betty Boop and Popeye animated shorts) Gulliver’s Travels in 1939. Two years after Snow White premiered.

     1935’s The Raven was one of, I believe, four movies Universal made starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in the mid-30’s.  Excluding any of the Universal Monster films.  The title “The Raven” is a bit of a stretch as the only connection between Edgar Allan Poe’s poem and the movie’s story is the use of the poem a couple of times and Lugosi’s character being a fan of Poe’s who owns a stuffed raven.  This is a Universal horror film that really wants to be good, but has a few issues getting over the finish line.  None of those issues being the performance of Lugosi.  He is just how you want him to be, only kind of crazy.

     A businessman is murdered in his locked home office.  After a few months, the police, having found no leads, abandon the case.  The victim’s daughter decides to seek out famous sleuth Charlie Chan to solve the case.  This is the basic plot of Charlie Chan in The Chinese Cat starring Sydney Toler as the Chinese detective.  This time out he’s helped by his #3 son, Tommy, and Cabbie Birmingham Brown. 

     The Grapes of Wrath is one of those films I know I saw in my youth but most of the details had long since been wiped from my mind. Other than the iconic moments you might see in retrospective documentaries on classic films. So this was basically like seeing it for the first time for me. Directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda it tells the story of the Joad family. Sharecroppers who, due to the one/two punch of the great depression and the Dust Bowl, are forced off their homestead. They load up their 1926 Hudson truck with all their earthly belongings and family and head to California with the promised availability of good work for good pay. Much of the film is the road trip but when they reach California, of course, all is not as was promised on a printed handbill they clutch in their desperate hands.

     1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn is my favorite movie of all time and I’ve seen a lot of Robin Hood films over the years. None have lived up to that 1938 classic. Those made in the past 30 years have been downright terrible. I’ve known about the silent Douglas Fairbanks version for a long time but never had the chance to see it. I now seen it (at least a version of it) and found it to be half of a very entertaining movie. It takes an hour for “The Earl of Huntingdon” to take up the moniker of Robin Hood, who steals from the rich and gives to the poor.