A Special Musical Monday with Julie Newmar, the Abe Lyman Orchestra... and YOU!

In celebration of all the faculty members and students returning to the halls of higher education, with a spring in their step and a song in the hearts--because of the student loan cancellations/forgiveness decreed by President Joe Biden--we present a sing-along! Click on linked video and sing along with the lyrics presented next to Professor Newmar (and repeated for your convenience and more easily-read at the bottom of this post)!

'Black & White': Fun take on the hardboiled genre

Black & White (2018)
Starring: Emily Inserra, Nick D'Ambrosia, Amber Walker, Tommy Barbara, Jaime Plitnick, Dave Cifelli, and Alex Luckenbaugh
Director: "Collective Brain"
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

After getting black-out drunk at a party, college girl Rose (Inserra) wakes up to find that everything around her now appears in shades of gray. She sets out to reconstruct what happened the night before and to hopefully get some color back into her life!

"Black & White" is a well-crafted spoof of the hardboiled detective thrillers where the main character is trying to piece together a mystery that has deep and personal ramifications for his or her future, but which consists of clues and mysteries within mysteries that defy meaning until they are all uncovered and put together. In this case, the detective role is a party girl who has a bad habit of getting drunk and breaking up with her boyfriend, but her narration is hilariously hardboiled, as is a couple of the actions she takes while seeking out witnesses and gathering clues to solve the mystery.

Over its 9-minute running time, "Black & White" pokes fun at college campus stereotypes (especially as they manifest in romance fiction and dramas), detective fiction, the film noir movie genre, and perhaps even one or two other subjects that escaped my notice. The script is hilarious, with Rose's internal monologue causing me to have a near-constant smile on my face as the film unfolded, and the "what are going to do?" scene had me laughing out loud. I also loved the splashes of color that entered into the film as it reached its conclusion, effectively driving home the point that Rose has reached the end of her journey of discovery and that maybe better days are ahead. 

I also thought the film was nicely photographed, the soundtrack music was perfect, and the sound was always clear and well-balanced. That's actually a bigger deal than someone who doesn't watch a lot of these sorts of YouTube videos might realize. There have been many, many shorts that I've not bothered featuring here or at the "Terror Titans" blog, because the sound was so badly done that dialogue couldn't be heard clearly due to background noise or was drowned out by the soundtrack music due to bad mixing, or because the sound effects so badly integrated so as to be distracting. There are even some otherwise good films that are weakened by bad choice of soundtrack stock music.

I really only have one real complaint about "Black & White", and I don't know if I should be grateful for the filmmakers for giving me the opportunity to make it. There's a scene where Rose barges in on a guy sitting on the toilet, but he has his long-johns fully pulled up. Why? How? What could he have been doing there, dressed like that? It was such a weird moment that it pulled me out of the film. (There are some nitpicks, but I'm not going to call them out, because I understood and appreciated and was amused by what the filmmakers were going for, even if they didn't quite manage to pull it off.)

All in all, if you like film noir or college-based dramas or romantic comedies, I think you'll get a kick out of "Black & White". 

--

"Black & White" was made by a group of then-students at Ramapo College in New Jersey. They created films under the name Collective Brain, because, according, to the person monitoring their Facebook page, their films were true group efforts and there was no clear delineation between who wrote what and who directed it. Unfortunately, if the views, likes, and subscriptions visible on the Collective Brain YouTube Channel are any indication, their efforts have not gotten a whole lot of traction or attention. That's too bad, because, if "Black & White" is any indication, they were creating good stuff. (It's not all bad news, though; I found a smattering of credits at IMDB for several of the members of the Collective, and at least one has been performing with a Shakespearean theatre company in Massachusetts. It appears they on their way to success in the Real World, YouTube be damned!)

The Avengers: A Sense of History

A Sense of History (1966)

Starring: Patrick Macnee, Diana Rigg, Patrick Mower, Nigel Stock, John Ringham, and Jacqueline Pearce

Director: Peter Graham Scott

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

John Steed (Macnee) and Emma Peel (Rigg) go undercover at an elite university to find who murdered a leading economist by shooting him in the back with an arrow. They discover a plot to shape the economic future of a united Europe by murdering key politicians and researchers. But which scholars are involved, and who is the mastermind?

I am torn when it comes to this episode. There are things I really like and there are things I can't stand.

On the one hand, I love the set-up and the nature of villains, from how they're characterized, to what motivates them, and through to the plot twists and turns of who the mastermind behind the plot truly is. I also loved the way one cliffhanger resolved into another cliffhanger as the episode reached its climax during a masquerade ball.

On the other hand, the mix of the sinister and the goofy stereotypical Sixties Youth Culture that embodies the student group at the heart of the episode gets tiresome quickly. It becomes downright annoying once it's clear how wrong-headed they are in their destructive beliefs--I just wanted Mrs. Peel to punch each of them in the mouth as soon as it they opened them--but maybe it's a combination of the passage of time and my own worldview that's causing that reaction, or maybe those characters were just supremely annoying. (They're in the same mold as the villains in "A Touch of Brimstone", but far more irritating, partly because their evil here is flavored with wholly undeserved self-righteousness.)

I also felt like the writers wasted too much time on the hipster evil of the young set. This is an episode with a really convoluted plot and a story that is slightly over-stuffed with characters, and some of it doesn't reach its full potential because of the writers belaboring certain social points. 

 

The student group was so annoying to me that I almost rated this episode at the low-end of average (which is a Five of Ten Stars here at Shades of Gray), but as I thought about it, the witty banter between Steed and Peel, plus the Robin Hood puns and sly references scattered throughout, turned my attitude toward "A Sense of History" (even if one of them was a bit forced and nonsensical plot-wise). Emma Peel crossdressing as Robin Hood in short-shorts also went a long way to improving my outlook... 

All things considered, this isn't a terrible episode, but it's far from one of the best. (The end-of-episode gag with Steed and Peel driving off on a motorcycle--with Peel driving and Steed in the sidecar--is, however, among the best of those.)

'The Mad Ghoul' is worth knowing

The Mad Ghoul (1943)
Starring: George Zucco, David Bruce, Evelyn Ankers, Turhan Bey, and Robert Armstrong
Director: James Hogan
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

College chemistry professor Alfred Morris (Zucco) re-discovers a formula for a gas that ancient Central Americans used turn people into pseudo-living zombies, as well as a means for reversing the transformation. He uses his assistant, Ted (Bruce), as an unwitting human test subject while trying to put the moves on Ted's opera-singing fiance (Ankers)... but when the antidote for the gas turns out to only be temporary, Morris's life and Ted's psuedo-undeath become a lot more complicated.

"The Mad Ghoul" is a horror film from Universal Pictures--the studio that bought the world "The Mummy", "Dracula", and "Frankenstein"--that sounds like a film from Monogram or PRC, with its mad scientist with an even madder scheme, a young couple being threatened by evil, and a crusading reporter who is going to stop the monster the police have been unable to catch.

What the writers and director does with those elements are a great change of, though: The crusading reporter ends up, the young couple's romance is revealed to have been over even before the film starts, and the mad doctor's mad scheme keeps getting more insane, first because he was cocky and had to cover up a failed experiment and then because he wanted to remove all rivals for the woman with whom he believes he shares a mutual attraction. (Some of my favorite parts of the film is when George Zucco and Evelyn Ankers' characters are talking past each other; Zucco thinks they are expressing their love for each other while Ankers thinks she's just unloading her sorrows to a sympathetic ear. These scenes feature some nice acting and even better writing, because they perfectly communicate the notion that Zucco's character later expresses, after he realizes he was mistaken: "Sometimes we see what we want to see.")

The cast of "The Mad Ghoul" all provide good performances. Zucco is in particularly fine form, playing the crazed heavy he specialized in but with a tiny bit of nuances thrown in. Robert Armstrong is also fun as the "I'm smarter than the cops" newsman who populates films of this type, and while I saw his brutal end coming before it actually happened, I was a little sad to see him go. Meanwhile, Ankers and Bey play the kinds of characters they portrayed in many other films, and they do it with their usual skill. Finally, David Bruce, in one of his few starring roles, is good as what initially comes across as the standard, fairly bland romantic lead, but becomes an increasingly interesting and nuanced character as the film unfolds.

'Horse Feathers' is high-quality nonsense

With the college football season coming to an end for 2018, it seemed like the perfect time to rewatch one of my favorite Marx Brothers films with an eye toward reviewing it for Shades of Gray. And it was.

Horse Feathers (1932)
Starring: The Marx Brothers, Thelma Todd, Nat Pendleton, and James Pierce
Director: Norman McLeod
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

A crazy university president (Groucho Marx) tries to rig the Big Football Game against a rival school... with disastrous results.

"Horse Feathers" is one of the greatest movies the Marx Brothers ever made. It is an almost non-stop barrage of wild comedy--both visual, physical, and spoken--that is book-ended by my most favorite Marx Brothers song and dance routine--"Whatever It Is, I'm Against It"--and the craziest football spoof ever committed to film. Every joke and gag comes off perfectly, and the Marx Brothers are all top form, even the straight-man of the group, Zeppo, shines as a college football star and son of the university's president.

The stellar performances from the Marx Brothers are ably supported by equally great showings from Nat Pendleton (who appears as a football player) and Thelma Todd (who proves here that she will forever be one of the sexiest commedienes in history; films like this really show what a great loss to the world her tragic and premature death  was). Todds comedic timing is absolutely perfect throughout this film, as she vamps it up as a campus man-eater and femme fatale with the scenes she shares with Chico and Groucho being among the film's brightest highlights.

There is really only one part of the film that doesn't click is the musical number performed by Harpo in an attemtp to woo Thelma Todd's character. It goes on for too long and it brings the movie to a screeching halt for over three minutes. Yes, "Everyone Says I Love You" is a nice tune and Harpo plays beautifully, but the segment is out of place... and Zeppo and Groucho's respective uses of the verses of the same song in serenading Todd don't interrupt the flow of this zany movie. (In fact, Groucho's performance and its aftermath cranks it up a notch.)

There are few films I have watched more than once--there are simply too many movies in the world--but I am glad that I now number "Horse Feathers" among them. This second viewing was time well spent.

'A Night in the Dormitory' is a fun artifact

A Night in the Dormitory (1930)
Starring: Ruth Hamilton, Ginger Rogers, Thelma White, Si Wills, and Eddie Elkins
Director: Harry Delmar
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A college girl (Hamilton) returns to the dorm after sneaking out for a night on the town. She relates her experiences to one of her bunkmates.

"A Night in the Dormitory" is an all-singing, all-dancing spectacular that gives the viewer a sense of what it must have been like to go to a night club that featured floor shows Back in the Day. Heck, the obviously underrehearsed chorus lines that back Thelma White and Ginger Rogers (in her second screen appearance) probably added a healthy dose of verisimilitude to audiences watching this short in theatres back in 1930.

If you enjoy musical production numbers and vaudville routines, I think you'll enjoy this 22-minute collection of bits loosely tied together by the college girl's walk on the Great Depression wildside. The tunes are catching--I find myself humming the one performed by White as I type this--and sloppy chorus lines aside, they're fun to watch.


For everyone else, though, this film is little more than a historical artifact that records the live entertainment preferences of a by-gone era... and one that is probably quite faithful to the nightclub experience, since the producer and director of the film got his start booking and staging the kinds of shows this movie revolves around.

'Weird Woman' has Lon Chaney Jr at his best

Inner Sanctum: Weird Woman (1944)
Starring: Lon Chaney Jr., Anne Gwynne, Evelyn Ankers, Elizabeth Risdon, and Lois Collier
Director: Reginald Le Borg
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

While studying native rituals and superstitions, an anthroplogy professor (Chaney) falls in love with marries the daughter of an old mentor (Gwynne). Upon his return to the United States, he discoversn that his wife is a fervent believer in the native gods and that she has been practing rituals that she believes will protect him from the evil intentions of one of his colleagues (Ankers). Appalled that his wife believes in such supersitious nonsense, he forces her to destroy all the charms and fetishes she owns... but as soon as he does this, his life and career start falling apart.

"Weird Woman" is a decent adaptation of one of Fritz Leiber's best novels, "Conjure Wife". It features a nice, tight script, great performances by the entire cast, and a surprise ending that at the same time manages to reinforce and cast doubt on the film's central premise--that the "powers of the supernatural" are nothing but supersition and fear causing believers to act in ways that create self-fulling prophecies.

Of particular note in this film is by Lon Chaney Jr., who is seen giving one of the best performances of his entire career. The character he is playing could easily have come across as a self-satisfied jerk in the hands of an lesser actor. His attitude toward his wife and her beliefs is obnoxious in the extreme, and some of his interactions with the staff and students of the college he teaches at borders on high-handed with a wiff of false humility. But Chaney infuses the character with an air of insecurity that makes the viewer accept and even forgive his behavior.

"Weird Woman" is one of the best entires in the "Inner Sanctum" movie series, and it's one of the best films to come out of the Universal Pictures' horror revival in the 1940s. Fans of classic mystery films, the Universal Pictures horror collection, and Lon Chaney Jr. will all find a lot to like in this one.

Sampling one of the greats: 'Oh, My Goddess!"

Several years ago, I bought and read my last volume of English-language reprints of Kosuke Fujishima's "Oh, My Goddess!"

It wasn't because I'd grown tired of the series--while I thought Fujishima's art was starting to fray a bit around the edges as he was seeming to begin to succumb to the stagnation that seems to hit every comic book artist whose style stops evolving for a long period of time, I still loved the sweet humor and overall story-lines of the books.

No, I abandoned this series, because, within two more releases in the series, Dark Horse Comics went from providing properly translated, flipped versions of the comic, to the slip-shod non-flipped translations that are now the norm in the marketplace. As much as I liked "Oh, My Goddess!", I didn't want to support that move with my patronage.

No matter... Dark Horse and Fujishima didn't need my money, as the series is still going strong and into the 40s as far as the number of reprint books go.

I was going through some archived files, and I found this review from October 2005. I figured I'd repost it. It may be the first in a series of "Oh, My Goddess!" reviews, as I may enjoy my improving eyesight by re-reading those great graphic novels.

And now... re-presenting a review exactly as it first appeared on "Rotten Tomatoes" in 2005...


"Oh, My Godess!" Vol. 17: Traveller
Story and Art: Kosuke Fujishima
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

Kosuke Fujishima's "Oh, My Goddess!" series has ranked among the very best graphic novel series in the world for at least the past decade. His story-telling techniques have continued to evolve, and while I have some personal nitpicks with where his art style is heading, they are exactly nothing but nitpicks. The latest volume in the series shows that this series will be going strong for years to come. The art is gorgeous, the stories are funny and touching, and the characters are as charming as ever.

In "Traveler," the threats faced by mechanic and college student Keiichi and the three goddesses (Belldandy, Skuld, and Urd) that have taken up residence with him in an abandoned temple are not of the reality-shattering variety--they prevented all of time from being unraveled in the previous volume, "Mystery Child"--but instead are on a smaller, more personal scale.

The first half of the book introduces a new continuing cast member--a sentient robot built by Skuld as a companion to Banpei, Skuld's first self-aware robotic creation. Unfortunately, the new robot hates Banpei with a passion.

The second half of the book opens with Belldandy losing her divine powers at a very inopportune moment. The timing becomes even worse when she and Keiichi become stranded at the center of an infinite space generated by another of Skuld's inventions. To make matters worse something is in the space with them....

This second half of "Traveler" is Fujishima's finest effort so far. Keiichi is firmly at center stage, shining like he never has before even while dealing with yet another weird creature that's ended up in his life due to the presence of the goddesses. The flow of the story is perfectly paced and the ending is very satisfying.

'Zombies Calling' is top-notch zombie comedy

Zombies Calling (Published by SLG Publishing, 2007)
Story and Art: Faith Erin Hicks
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When a Canadian university is overrun by zombies, it's up to geeky horror film lover Joss to save herself and her roomates, armed only with the Rules of Survival gleaned a lifetime of watching zombie movies and a spork.

For about two decades, SLG Publishing (formerly Slave Labor Graphics) and its imprint Amaze Ink has been one of the American comic book industry's best-kept secrets. They have quietly been publishing high-quality, quirky comics and graphic novels that really deserve far more recognition and readership than they've ever gotten.

One such book is Faith Erin Hicks' hilarious "Zombies Calling", a breezy graphic novel that moves effortlessly between drama, humor and horror. It's a well-crafted book that entetains and amuses from the first page to the last. Writer/artist Hicks presents a cast of characters that are likeable and funny and that she gets us to care about. Like a good zombie movie, we want them to escape the brain-hungry hoards because we like them... and when Rule Two comes into play ("One person makes the ultimate sacrifice so the rest can live"), the book as as suspenseful as any zombie movie you've seen.

In fact, this book will remind you so strongly of "Zombieland" that you may think Hicks was copying that movie. The truth is, Hicks' book predates "Zombieland", and it's either proof that Great Minds Think Alike, or the writers of "Zombieland" are familiar with the well-kept secret that is SLG Publishing, and intimately familiar with "Zombies Calling".

If you're looking for some light Halloween reading, or perhaps a gift for a zombie lover in your life, you can't go wrong with "Zombies Calling".

'Murder on the Campus' is a mostly well-executed who-dunnit

Murder on the Campus (aka "On the Stoke of Nine") (1933)
Starring: Charles Starrett, Shirley Grey, Edward Van Sloan, Ruth Hall, and J. Farrell MacDonald
Director: Richard Thorpe
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When a student is found shot to death high atop a locked bell tower at the center of a busy college campus, ace reporter Bill Bartlett (Starrett) is intrigued, but still thinks it's just another story. When his girl friend Lillian (Grey) emerges as the only suspect, however, he joins forces with criminologist and science professor Edwen Hawley (Van Sloan) to solve this perfect murder and find the real culprit.


After a shakey start (with some pretty lame acting by Starrett and Grey), "Murder on the Campus" comes together as a fine little murder mystery. It is particularly excellent, because it's one of those films that "plays fair" with the audience--if you're paying attention while watching, you can figure out Whodunnit as the hero does, perhaps even before.

Mostly decently acted and well-written, this film is a nice little gem that I recommend to fans of classic mysteries. The ending isn't quite what I would have expected--nor does it sit completely well with me--but it's in keeping with the rest of the film, so it's not all bad. (I guess this means that the film has a strong main body that starts and ends weakly. Still, it's worth checking out.)