'On the Loose' is worth catching

On the Loose (1931)
Starring: Thelma Todd, ZaSu Pitts, John Loder, Claude Allister, Billy Gilbert, Otto Fries, Dorothy Layton, Oliver Hardy, and Stan Laurel
Director: Hal Roach
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A chance encounter with a rich Englishman (Loder) gives a pair of young women (Pitts and Todd) hope that they'll finally have dates that doesn't take place at the Coney Island amusement park. They hope in vain, because, to a pair of wealthy Brits, there's nothing as exciting and exotic as a trip to an American amusement park.

"On the Loose" is what more of these Thelma Todd-starring short films should have been like--more situational comedy and less slapstick. More of them should also have quiet scenes like the one featured here where we just have the lead characters chatting with one another. Little moments like that makes the characters more appealing. If more films had followed the pattern of this one--presenting a complete story with a beginning , a middle, and end, and focused on characters and situational human instead of lamely executed slapstick routines and incompletely written scripts--this could have been a great series of films instead of a mediocre one with flashes of greatness every now and then. (Patsy Kelly, who replaced ZaSu Pitts after the first batch of films, might have seemed less obnoxious if she'd had material to work with.)

As for the cast, Hal Roach (doing double-duty as both studio boss and director on this one) gets excellent performances out of everyone. Thelma Todd in particular shines in this picture, giving a nuanced performance that adds a tremendous amount of fun to every scene she's in. ZaSu Pitts delivers one of her typical, competent and amusing performances; she's also doesn't have to do any awkwardly staged, badly executed physical bits.

Meanwhile, British actors John Loder and Claude Allister provide some great moments as the gentlemen who sincerely believe they are showing their dates the greatest and most unusual time they have ever experienced. (Allister repeatedly ending up between couple Otto Fries and Dorothy Layton is a very funny running gag, and it's literal punchline is one of the film's high points.)

One thing I found fascinating about this film is the amusement park setting. I remember some of the things portrayed as being present in "fun houses" when I was a kid, as well as the shooting galleries. With some of the others, I was amazed that such rides/activities could even exist in the 1930s they appeared to be so prone to getting participants injured. I haven't been to an amusement park or traveling carnival in 25-30 years, so I found myself wondering if any of those sorts of games and activities even exist anymore. Maybe I need to get out more!

"On the Loose" is one of the films included on the two-DVD collection of all the films Thelma Todd and ZaSu Pitts co-starred in

Classic Cinema: The Man Who Changed His Mind

This time around in Classic Cinema, Boris Karloff plays an obsessed scientist who has found the secret of the human soul and how to preserver it and transfer it between bodies. He summons his prize student, played by Anna Lee, to help him in the final stages of his research... but that's when things start to go horribly wrong.

"The Man Who Changed His Mind" is a spectacular early sci-fi/horror flick from England. The script is expertly paced and hits all the right notes, humorous, dramatic, and horrific. The cast all give fine performances, the script hits but Anna Lee is the true stand-out among the cast. Watch for the scene where she teeters on the brink between brilliance and madness herself -- it's a powerful bit of acting that's done purely with her eyes and facial expressions.

Click below to watch "The Man Who Changed His Mind" in its entirety, or click here to read my review first.

Karloff is 'The Man Who Changed His Mind'

The Man Who Changed His Mind (aka "Body Switch", "Doctor Maniac", and "The Man Who Lived Again") (1936)
Starring: Boris Karloff, Anna Lee, John Loder, Donald Calthorp, and Frank Cellier
Director: Robert Stevenson
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

Dr. Laurence (Karloff) devises a method to switch the intangible elements that makes up a being's mind from one body to another, but snaps when he is mocked by the scientific establishment and a rich newspaper publisher (Cellier) pulls his patronage for the doctor's research. He decides to use his method for his own gain, up to and including switching bodies with the son of his former patron (Loder) so he can marry the beautiful and intelligent Dr. Clare Wyatt (Lee).

"The Man Who Changed His Mind" is perhaps one of the most intense horror films from the 1930s that I've come across. From the first time Boris Karloff's chain-smoking mad scientist crosses paths with Anna Lee's brilliant and independent-minded surgeon, you know things are going to end badly for more than one of the film's characters. But even with that knowledge, you're not going to guess how badly and for whom until the story is all but done unfolding. Even after nearly 75 years, this is a horror film that countless modern-day filmmakers need to study and emulate' their films would be far better for it.

The film is driven by a tight, expertly paced script that presents just the right mixture of horror and humor to make both aspects as effective as possible, especially given that most of the humor is of a pitch-black variety. The cast is also excellent and everyone is perfect for their parts and talented enough to bring depth to even the thinnest of characters. Dr. Laurence's assistant Clayton could easily have been just an obnoxious and unpleasant jerk, but Donald Calthorp brings enough humanity to the role that the viewer had a little empathy for him. The same is true even of John Loder's character who belongs to that most loathsome of 1930s comic relief characters--the wise-cracking, corner-cutting reporter; the superior script and dialogue makes even that character type bearable, and the viewer will actually fear for him when he becomes a target of Laurence instead of cheering the villain onward to success just to shut him up.

But the film's coolest--and most chillingly unexpected-- scenes is the one where Dr. Wyatt takes on the mantle of "mad scientist". The lighting, editing, and superior acting talent of Anna Lee all add up to the character going to a dark place that few heroic characters go even in the nihilistic modern horror movies.

There is a hard coldness on her face and in her eyes that would have made even the mad Dr. Laurence shiver in fear, as she works switches and buttons on the mind-switching contraption. It's a performance that puts to shame even the one that I until now considered Lee's best--her turn as another strong-willed woman in Bedlam (review here, at the Boris Karloff Collection). It truly is one of the greatest moments in horror films, and I don't understand why more critics who fancy themselves experts in Great Cinema don't include it on their lists of "Top Fifty Horror Moments." Heck, it might even belong in the Top Ten!

"The Man Who Changed His Mind" is one of the many under-appreciated films from the early days of the horror genre. It is superior to a number of the more famous movies--including the ones from Universal that everyone has seen--and I encourage anyone who hasn't seen it to give it a try.

'Sabotage' is a fine adaptation of Conrad novel

Sabotage (1936)
Starring: Oskar Homolka, Sylvia Sidney, John Loder, and Desmond Tester
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

Verloc (Homolka) is a secret agent of a foriegn power who plans devestating acts of terrorism and sabotage In London from behind a facade as a harmless operator of a small movie theater. Verloc is devoted to his cause, but how firm will his wife (Sidney) stand?


"Sabotage" is one of Hitchcock's early films, and it is one of his best. The sequence where Verloc sends his wife's young brother, Stevie (Tester), to deliever a package that, unbeknownst to the brother, contains a time bomb, remains one of the tensest sequences ever put on film: Stevie, a mere child, takes every detour, is distracted by every interesting scene and event, and is slowed down in a hundred different ways during his trek across London... all while the bomb is ticking toward its detonation. Will the boy survive, or will Hitchcock violate what has been a standard from the earliest days of cinema... the cute young child is NEVER killed! (If you've read the Joseph Conrad novel "The Secret Agent", you know the fate of Stevie even before Verloc decides to use him as a courier, but the sequence is so fabulously put together that you will be on the edge of your seat.)

With great pacing, perfect casting (the actors seem as though they've lept from the pages of Conrad's book) and some playful crossovers between the events of the story and the movies showing at Verloc's theater, "Sabotatge" ranks among one of Hitchcock's most thrilling films.