Torchy Blane gets a fluffy send-off

Torchy Blane... Playing With Dynamite (1939)

Starring: Jane Wyman, Allen Jenkin, Tom Kennedy, Sheila Bromley, Eddie Marr, and Joe Cunningham

Director: Noel Smith

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Torchy (Wyman) gets herself sent to jail in the pursit of an exclusive article about notorious bank robber Denver Eddie (Marr) via his incarcerated girlfriend (Bromley). Meanwhile, her fiancé, police Lt. Steve McBride (Jenkins), and his assistant Gahagan (Kennedy) decide to moonlight as bounty hunters and team up with Torchy in an effort to catch the robber and collect a $5,000 reward.

With a title like "Torchy Blane... Playing with Dynamite", I had hoped there'd be a mad bomber somewhere in the mix here.. but no. There wasn't even a time bomb in this, the final outing for Torchy Blane. This isn't the first time where the title of a Torchy Blane film has been a little off-the-mark

There's nothing particularly bad about this film, except perhaps the shaky logic that motivates the characters Lt. McBride and Gahagan to fly across the country in pursuit of the bank robber.., and perhaps Torchy's running around committing actual crimes to get herself put in jail, on the off-chance that she'll make friends with the bank robber's girlfriend and thus get not only a scoop but also the chance to arrest him. However, if you try to put yourself in the mindset of a 10- or 12-year-old, then the logic makes perfect sense.

The best thing about "Torchy Blane... Playing With Dynamite" is that it's constantly moving and almost every moment is devoted to somehow advancing the film's story or providing some tidbit of character development. It's only an hour long, but it flies by so fast it feels even shorter.

Another strong point of the film is that Gahagan got to do a little more than just be a moron who gets in the way. In fact, he is key to the film's climactic sequence revolving around a professional wrestling match

This was the final entry in the Torchy Blane series, but it saw two of the three lead characters portrayed recast with Jane Wyman wearing Torchy's hats and Allen Jenkins carrying Steve's badge. While Jenkins is a good replacement for Barton MacLane (who previously played the character), Jane Wyman is less effective in taking over from Glenda Farrell. Wyman has plenty of screen presence and energy, but she lacks the aggressive edge that made Farrell's Torchy believable as someone who over and over would outshine her male colleagues on the crime beat, but also take their ribbing and throw it right back at them. Wyman's a good Torchy, but she's not a great one.

All in all, Torchy's swan song is a solid B-movie. It's better than some in the series, but it's no "Smart Blonde" or "Blonde at Work".

The good and the bad balance each other in the second Perry Mason film

The Case of the Curious Bride (1935)

Starring: Warren William, Margaret Lindsay, Allen Jenkins, Owlin Howland, Donald Woods, Thomas E. Jackson, Claire Dodd, and Barton MacLane

Director: Michael Curtiz

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Famed defense attorney Perry Mason (William) must uncover the truth buried beneath lies and police corruption when a former lover (Lindsay) comes to him for help with a blackmail case but ends up being accused of murdering the blackmailer.

"The Curse of the Curious Bride" was the second Perry Mason film produced by Warner Bros. during the mid-1930s. Reportedly, although film reviewers said nice things about it at the time, and it did well financially, Perry Mason's creator, Earl Stanley Gardner strongly disliked it. And I think it's clear why.

Although the film is fast paced, features an engaging mystery with stakes that keep getting raised as it goes, and a suspect pool that keeps getting larger instead of smaller as the story unfolds, it spends too much time trying to be a comedy. From banter that isn't entertaining, to scenes that are supposed to be funny but are mostly just dumb, and renaming and reshaping of Paul Drake into the third-rate comic relief Spudesy Drake, just about every attempt at humor in this film falls flat and just lays there on the floor, stinking like a dead fish in the sun. They only supposed-to-be-funny bits that come close to working is when Perry Mason is being overly dramatic and flamboyant in front of newspaper reporters.

It's a shame that the filmmakers decided to lean so heavily on badly done comedy in this picture, because, unlike so many other Perry Mason tales, this one gives a lot of insight into what he does for fun and who he spends time with outside of the law offices and courtrooms. In some ways, Mason feels like a more fully rounded character in this film than he did even after the total of two decades of television series and made-for-TV movies starring Raymond Burr. This aspect, combined with the fact that the film features a great cast, which could have made this a great Perry Mason movie is why I'm giving it a Six instead of the Five it probably deserves.

Another quirk of the film is that it never enters a courtroom; in fact, the case at the center of the film never even makes it to trail. While the concluding "action" doesn't always take place in a oourtroom in Perry Mason stories, there's at least some sort of legal proceeding at some point. Here, the closet we get is Mason meeting with the District Attorney, in a scene that's more there to underscore the corruption of the D.A. and the police department more than anything else.

And speaking of the corrupt police department... corruption is another aspect of this film that's unusual when compared to other Perry Mason screen adventures I've seen. While the police and prosecutors are often shown as either dimwitted, lazy, or just unwilling to look beyond their initial conclusions when it comes to getting their convictions, they aren't usually out-and-out corrupt like they are here. For example, the police detectives don't just go where the evidence takes them here--they all but frame their prime suspect for murder while the prosecutor prevents Mason from seeing her. (On the other side of the coin, however, Mason engages in corruption to a degree that I've also not seen any screen incarnations do up to this point. While I'm used to Mason playing a bit loose with the spirit of the law or bending procedural rules, and even the law, almost to the breaking point, he goes well beyond that in this film.)

Some of the elements which seemed out of place to me probably did not appear that way to audiences in 1935. Corrupt police and prosecutors were the norm in detective films of the day, and the Perry Mason Formula didn't have 85 years of development behind it like it does now. (And, for that matter, the corruption of the justice system that exists everywhere in this movie might be something that will allow newcomers to Perry Mason--via the excellent series that recently ran on HBO.)

"The Case of the Curious Bride" in included with five other Perry Mason films that were produced by Warner Bros. in the 1930s. It's a reasonable priced set, and I think it's worth checking out for Perry Mason fans, old and new.

'Tomorrow at Seven' is a one-suspect mystery

Tomorrow at Seven (1933)
Starring: Chester Morris, Vivienne Osborne, Frank McHugh, Allen Jenkins, and Henry Stephenson
Director: Ray Enright
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A writer (Morris), working on a book about the serial killer known as the Black Ace, gets close to his subject while onboard a chartered flight where another passenger becomes the maniac's latest victim.

"Tomorrow at Seven" is one of those films that needs to be remade. It's a story with TONS of potenial that is mostly unrealized because no risks are taken in the way the plot develops... and what is set up as the ultimate locked room mystery (a murder takes place with all suspects and potential victims together, in the air, in an airplane!) instead unfolds as a mildly interesting comedy with some dramatic moments and romantic overtones.

Maybe it's because it's 85 years since this film was made, but all the characters had barely been introduced when I settled upon who I thought was the Black Ace. I turned out I was right, despite the fact there was a second character who could just as easily have been the killer (and a third who would have been slightly more far-fetched but still plausible)... and I was right, because the cast of characters are the stock figures you expect them to be based on their roles at the beginning of the story and the physical appearance of the actors playing them; once the handsome, romantic male lead is crossed off the list as the murderer, there's really only one suspect left. (That said, there are some nice steps taken to cast suspicion around on a couple different characters... and what a great movie this could have been if more bravery had been shown in the plotting.)

As it stands, "Tomorrow at Seven" isn't a bad movie... it's just unremarkable. All the actors are good in the parts, the film moves along a good pace, and there's never a dull moment. Even the comic relief characters--a pair of bumbling police detectives (portrayed with great charm by Jenkins and McHugh)--are good, because they are actually funny instead of just annoying or stupid as is often the case in films from this period.

If you like "old dark house" flicks, or light mystery films from the early 1930s, "Tomorrow at Seven" is worth checking out if you dont' have to go out of your way for it.

(For my part, I think "Tomorrow at Seven" has inspired me to do another random mystery plot generator for the NUELOW Games blog, like "Who Killed Buck Robin?" and "Who Killed Major Payne?")