The 'Hitch-Hiker' is a genre-shaping thriller

The Hitch-Hiker (1954)
Starring: Frank Lovejoy, Edmund O'Brien, William Talman, and Jose Torvay

Director: Ida Lupino

Rating: Eight of Nine Stars

A pair of friends (Edmond O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy) find themselves at the mercy of a psychopath when they give a ride to the wrong hitchhiker (William Talman). 

"The Hitch-Hiker" is an acclaimed thriller co-written and directed by Ida Lupino, an actress who turned to directing and producing during a time when she was fighting with Studio Bosses over the sort of roles they kept giving her versus the parts she wanted to play. She went onto direct, write, and/or produce ten movies and over 100 episodes of television series ranging from westerns, to dramas, to comedies. 

The tension you feel as this film unfolds is amazing, fueled by great camera-work, well-chosen locations, great lighting, and the performances of the three principal actors. It is also blessed with a perfectly paced script and tight editing. William Talman is especially effective as the psychotic killer. If you liked him as Perry Mason's courtroom adversary on the television series, you'll love him in this one. 

"The Hitch-Hiker" (1953) is a chilling film that will keep you guessing as to how it will all end up until literally the final fade-out. It becomes even a little more scary when you consider it was based on real events, and that Talman's character was based on an actual killer who preyed upon motorists and took two friends hostage in a fashion similar to what happens in the film. Even Talman's strange, unsettling quirks are echoes of the real-life murderer.

This film has been the inspiration/model for dozens of similarly themed chillers, and it holds up nicely to comparisons with any of those that followed. Fittingly, it was added to the U.S. National Film Registry in 1998.

You can enjoy this excellent film by clicking below. Go microwave some popcorn, grab a drink, and lean back and enjoy "The Hitch-Hiker"!

'Say Nothing' is a stylish mini-thriller

Say Nothing (2022)
Starring: Jake Libner, Craig Roath, and Callie Stonecipher
Directors: Joe Rosener and Jak Velinsky
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Jake (Libner) is a prisoner being subjected to a brutal interrogation. When sees an opportunity to escape, he takes it. But will his interrogator (Roath) capture him before Jake reaches the warmth and safety of his home and loving wife (Stonecipher).

"Say Nothing" is a stylish mini-thriller with an aura of film noir hanging around it thickly. I liked it so much that even though I recognized what it was inspired by, and thus knew where it was ultimately headed, I still enjoyed it right up until the end.

One thing I really liked about the film was the clever way the filmmakers handled transitions. There was already artificial abuse and aging (of the kind you see on those bargain DVDs of public domain or copyright-orphaned films from producers like Alpha Video) done to the footage, and they used the appearance of severe scratches and damage to denote scene changes. I also liked the lighting of the scenes in general, as well as the camerawork. The technical aspects of this film really made it for me.

The only real complaint I can mount is that the entire film was too dark. Although I liked the way the scenes were lit, it was sometimes hard to see what was going on because everything was so dark. If the picture had been a bit brighter and with a little more contrast, I think I might have given this a rating of Seven. (I suspect the dark quality of the film may be a product of the desire to make the footage seem "old", despite the prominent presence of a cellphone.)

A less valid complaint, but one that also probably would have prompted me to give "Say Nothing" another Star (for a possible total of Eight) is that I think it could have been served well with a few lines of actual dialog. While it works as a silent movie, and is enhanced by a well-synchronized score, it would have been even stronger if there had been a voice on the cellphone, or if the interrogator spoke a few lines, and even if we got ot hear from Jake and his wife.

But, like I said, this works well enough as a silent movie. Craig Roath is particularly impressive and sinister as the interrogator, but Jake Libner and Callie Stonecipher also do as much as they can with their parts. (They don't get to emote as much as Roath).

Check out "Say Nothing" below; it's only six-and-a-half minutes long. Feel free to share your opinion in the comments below, and let me know if you caught onto where the film was going early on as well.

(BTW, I think I've seen Callie Stonecipher and Craig Roath in other things, but none of their IMDB credits look familiar, nor can I otherwise place them. Anyone out there know what else they've been in recently?)

'The False Magistrate' is silent end for Fantomas

The False Magistrate (1914)
Starring: René Navarre, Germaine Pelisse, Mesnery, Suzanne Le Bret, Laurent Morleas, Georges Melchior, and Edmond Breon

Director: Louis Feuillade

Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A scheme concocted by Inspector Juve (Breon) to make sure the evil mastermind Fantomas (Navarre) is executed for his many crimes and murders goes awry, and Fantomas instead escapes the grasp of law enforcement yet again. Through a series of lucky breaks, Fantomas manages to take over the identity of an investigating magistrate and sets about committing more crimes, now under the cover of law. 

"The False Magistrate" was the last entry in the original silent movie "Fantomas" series. Sadly, it survives only in a degraded and fragmented state. Even the best available restoration features several severely damaged sequences and relies on several added intertitles that provide summaries of what happened in sections of the film that don't even exist anymore. Normally, I would not write a review of a film in this state, but there are a couple of reasons why I make an exception here.

First, I'd already declared I was going to review all five films in this series, without knowing the actual state of the final one. It was included in a set of DVDs that held all the films, and I was so impressed with the first entry in the Louis Feuillade that I couldn't imagine a reason why I wouldn't want to cover all of them.

Secondly, and far more importantly, "The False Magistrate" may actually end up as a better film for its missing pieces. Clearly, some of the elements would have been nice to have--such as the summarized scenes that establish Rose the Maid (Suzanne Le Bret) as being connected with Fantomas's gang, and just more of the gang members in general--but I am almost 100 percent certain that we're better off not having anything but highlights remaining from the plot-threads involving Juve and Fandor, because what we're left with is some of the dumbest stuff in the entire series.

While I complained about the absolutely mind-numbingly silly ending to "Fantomas vs. Fantomas" (1914), this opens with Juve embarking on something even dumber. And it isn't even silly--just dumb--and a prime example of bad writing every way you look at.

Basically, Juve lets Fantomas escape from prison by taking his place. The scheme is clever and even more cleverly executed (through the return of the fat suit used in "Juve vs. Fantomas" (1913)), but what isn't so clever is that no one notices that the party of visiting dignitaries that Juve snuck in with has one less member leaving than when they arrived; nor does any of the guards notice for weeks that someone else is in Fantomas' cell. It gets even worse, because by letting Fantomas back out into the world, Juve should be held accountable for the three murders he commits and the numerous lives he ruins during the course of this film. The less we see of Juve and Fandor in this film, the better off we probably are--although Fandor is the focus of one of the better scenes when he works with a pair of police detectives to trick and capture members of Fantomas' gang.

Setting aside the fact that the only reason there even is a story in this film beyond Fantomas's escape from prison is a series of tremendous coincidences, the fact that we get to see Fantomas engaging in a scheme that is both utterly evil and that also seems realistic. The way he uses his stolen identity as a powerful member of law enforcement to both extort the wealthy and bring renegade members of his gang firmly under his control is very fitting of is supposed criminal genius (unlike some of his activities in previous films). The gruesome way in which he punishes a disloyal gang member, and, for that matter, every murder he commits during the course of the film, also chillingly shows what a psychopath he is. 

Another strong part of "The False Magistrate" is the ending, both how Fantomas is captured and how he escapes (and, no, I don't consider it a spoiler to say that Fantomas escapes yet again... it's part of the genre). Unlike the previous three films, the ending here is nearly perfect.  

This post marks the end of "Fantomas Fridays" at Shades of Gray. But, since we have the DVD collection of Louis Feuillade's other legendary thriller series, "Les Vampires", in the To Be Watched pile, you can expect them to be replaced with "Feuillade Fridays" in the new year. We hope you'll be back!

Strong ideas, weak execution, and a bad ending

Fantomas vs. Fantomas (1914)
Starring: René Navarre, Georges Melchior, Renée Carl, Edmund Breon, and Laurnt Morleas
Director: Louis Feuillade

Rating: Five of Ten Stars

With Inspector Juve (Breon) imprisoned to pacify the public who as become convinced he is the criminal mastermind Fantomas, the real Fantomas (Navarre) works to turn Paris' muggers and petty criminals into his minions and revenue stream... even while launching a scheme to monitor and manipulate police activity from the inside and to assist him in an even more nefarious plot!

"Fantomas vs. Fantomas" is the fourth film in the original silent movie adaptations of the, at the time, hugely popular series of novels revolving around the mysterious criminal mastermind Fantomas and his dogged pursuers Inspector Juve and crusading reporter Fandor… and it's a bit of a mess.

Like the previous film in the series, "The Murderous Corpse", this one has Fantomas and his foes matching wits over several over-lapping schemes, some of which are clever, but all of which end up in a big tangle that blow up into a big mess due to a mix of Fantomas' arrogance and psychopathy.

Like "The Murderous Corpse", this "Fantomas vs. Fantomas" is crammed with great story ideas, but none are executed to the fullest extent of their promise and each might have been better served as the basis for their own film, or at least given more space to develop. Juve's unjust imprisonment and Fantomas' efforts to frame him even harder provide a couple of interesting plot-points, especially since twists linked to it ends up ruining every one of Fantomas' schemes in the film. However, for long stretches of the film, Juve is completely forgotten, because so many other things have to be set up.

The same is true of Fantomas' effort to control and exploit the petty street criminals and muggers of Paris--which starts as a chance encounter when a robbery endangers one of his many false identities. As with Juve's imprisonment and Fantomas' trying to take advantage of it, this endeavor ends up not coming off as the mastermind had hoped. In this case, the failure is linked entirely to Fantomas's greed and arrogance; but it's a storyline that drops from the film for its entire middle section, with a couple of oblique, nonsensical tie-ins with Fantomas' main scheme for this film.

And this main scheme is really where the entire film should have been focused (with perhaps Juve's imprisonment or Fantomas' dealings with the street gangs serving as a subplot). Here, Fantomas is endeavoring to defraud the wealthy and powerful of France by encouraging them to contribute to a bounty fund and then faking his own capture at the hands of an American detective who is actually one of Fantomas himself in one of his many fake identities. One of the best part of the film revolves around the fund-raising ball that Fantomas forces his high society accomplice Lady Beltham (Renee Carl) to host, and which he himself attends--"disguised" as Fantomas. Also attending, and also wearing Fantomas costumes, is crusading reporter Fandor (Georges Melchior) and an undercover police officer. Both Fandor and police assumed that the arrogant Fantamas wouldn't pass up the chance to attend the ball, and that he would become enraged at the sight of someone daring to impersonate him... and they assumed correctly.

 Ultimately, the actions Fantomas takes at the charity ball end up undoing all of his schemes in this film. It was a great idea, and the dominos that fall are all cleverly lined up... but the great idea is clumsily executed and almost ruined by some truly stupid plot conveniences, one of which feels like the writers just said, "Well, we're out of space and time, so let's just do this truly dumb, utterly nonsensical thing to let Fantomas escape to menace the heroes another day!"

Truly, the final seconds of "Fantomas vs. Fantomas" are among the dumbest thing I've ever seen in an film that was supposed to be taken seriously. If this had been a comedy, it would have been perfect; here, it just comes across as lazy, moronic, and startling for all the wrong reasons. It almost ruins the entire film. (On the upside, it all but made me forget about how confusing I find the relationship between Lady Beltham and Fantomas, a point I've mentioned in two previous reviews of this series and which continues in this one.)

Perhaps in 1914 this jumble of great ideas and plot threads that culminate in pure idiocy made more sense; it's based on a novel (maybe more than one?) that viewers were almost certainly familiar with and the writers and director may have left things out because he knew this. To 21st century viewers, the result is a bit lacking, and it feels like a major drop in quality from the first "Fantomas" film and a plunge from the high point of "Juve vs. Fantomas".

 

One final note: I saw another reviewer comment that "Fantomas vs. Fantomas" is a favorite among fans of this series? How? Why? What am I missing? Feel free to enlighten by leaving a comment if you feel so inclined!

The third Fantômas film suffers from too much of a good thing

Fantômas III: The Murderous Corpse (aka "The Deadly Corpse" and "The Dead Man Who Killed") (1913)
Starring: Georges Melchior, René Navarre, Fabienne Fabrèges, Edmund Breon, Luitz-Morat, Jane Farber, Marie Dorly, Naudier, and Renée Carl
Director: Louis Feuillade
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Fandor (Melchoir) attempts to solve the mystery of how the fingerprints of a man who died in prison are showing up at crime scenes. Meanwhile, Fantômas (Navarre) is murdering, stealing, and undertaking a stock swindling scheme, all without fear of detection now that his nemesis Inspector Juve (Breon) is missing and presumed dead.

"The Deadly Corpse" is the longest Fantomas chapter so far, but it would have been better served if it had been shorter. While a few scenes are padded with characters meandering about and not much happening, the bigger problem is that the film is crammed too full of sinister Fantômas-ing.

In "The Deadly Corpse", Fantômas is basically engineering a stock manipulation scheme, but he goes about it with a ridiculously complicated web interconnected crimes--such as framing a guy for murder and then murdering him (as well as stealing his dead body), a jewel heist and some related extortion, and a second murder (for which he frames the missing dead man). All of these things are excellent ideas and very well presented in the film... but these good pieces add up to a less than satisfying whole. This would have been a much stronger film (not to mention shorter) if Fantômas had just done the heist and the second murder, or perhaps skipped the heist and just used the mystery of the how a dead man of the first kill could be committing murder to sensationalize the second the kill. Maybe my reaction is coming from being 100+ years of development of cinematic thriller tropes removed from this film, or maybe this film is a prime example of "too much of a good thing."

Another issue is the return of Lady Beltham (played by Renée Carl). The character's murky relationship to Fantômas in "Juve vs Fantomas" bothered me, but here I find it downright annoying. Even Fantômas seems surprised when she turns up on his doorstep to offer her assistance in his latest schemes, putting a lie to my notion that there was some twisted romantic relationship between the characters. Perhaps viewers in 1913 understood Lady Beltham's role in the over-arcing storyline of the series--these films were based on best-selling novels of the day, so the target audience already knew all the characters and how they were connected to each other--but I was left wondering why she was brought back instead of the far more interesting new female assistant that was introduced in the previous film (and who is nowhere in this one).

I was also bothered by the fact that this film is tinted, but I went on about my issues there extensively in my write up of"Juve vs Fantomas" so I won't repeat them here. 

Ultimately, "The Murderous Corpse" is a somewhat disappointing entry in the "Fantômas" series with a bunch of good components coming together to form a less-than-satisfying whole. Maybe things get better again in Part Four!

A genre-founding game of cat and mouse...

Juve vs Fantomas (1913)
Starring: Edmund Breon, Georges Melchior, René Navarre, Yvette Andréyor, and Renée Carl
Director: Louis Feuillade
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Fantômas (Navarre)--a psychopathic murderer, master of disguise and leader of a vast criminal enterprise--attempts to eliminate his dogged pursuers Police Inspector Juve (Breon) and journalist Fandor (Melchoir) while enacting a scheme to rob wine dealers of 150,000 Francs.

I have seen the Louis Feuillade-directed Fantômas material described alternatively as a serial and as series of sequels. Having watched now (finally) the second installment of the series, it's clearly a serial. While the first film delivered a complete story and stood relatively well on its own (read the review here), this one relies not only on prior knowledge of the characters featured, but on some degree of what happened in the previous film, but also ends with a number of unresolved plot elements.

Although "Juve vs. Fantômas" is part of a serial with no solid beginning and no end, it is made up of shorter, almost self-contained stories centered on either Fantômas and his gang schemes and heist attempts, or the back and forth between Juve & Fandor trying to catch Fantômas while Fantômas is trying to kill them.

From a genre history perspective, this is an interesting film to watch, because its chase scenes, shoot-outs, and general pacing and alignment of characters show how little the action and thriller genres have changed in the 110+ years since this "Juve vs. Fantômas" was released. The technology and techniques of filmmaking may have changed, but the pursuit scenes, confrontations between heroes and villains, shoot-outs--every story element really--could be transferred to a modern film with very little revision. (Okay, so Fantômas' method of escaping from Juve and Fandor when they nab him about halfway into the film would have to be completely reworked, but almost everything else would fit in a modern thriller. Oh... and me staying that Fantômas escapes from his pursuers is not a breach of my general policy of not providing spoilers; Fantômas will ALWAYS escape, because, although he's the villain, these films are more about what he and his crew are getting up to than the heroes that are trying to catch him.)

Highpoints of the film are the startling aftermath of Fantômas' gang robbing a wine broker they'd cat-fished; a shoot-out that's s equal parts thrilling and hilarious, with it being a very tense sequence that feels like heroes Juve and Fandor are in geuine peril, but funny due the way the gunmen trying to kill them pop up and down from cover; the scenes that underscore exactly how confident Fantômas is in his abilities to avoid capture, such as when he returns to finish his date at a nightclub with two lovely ladies after almost getting pinched at that very nightclub; and the entirety of cat-and-mouse game between Juve and  Fantômas that culminates in the film's final minutes that shocking cliffhanger.

On the downside, Fantômas' murky relationship with Lady Beltham (Renée Carl) continues from the first film, without any additional clarification of it. We're introduced to a new female assistant to Fantômas (Yvette Andréyor) at the beginning of the film--one who is a straight-up criminal like he, and who shares at least some of his talents for disguise, deceit, and being a social chameleon, and is all-around more interesting and even prettier than Lady Beltham--so I figured Fantômas had gotten all the use he could out of Beltham and moved on... but this is not the case. She is brought back into the story and cooperates with him for reasons even less comprehensible than her working with him before, and we get no further insight into why she cooperates with him or why he even reaches out to her. (Although I was a bit annoyed to see whatever it is that binds Fantômas and Beltham together, I hope she'll appear again in future installments, perhaps even get killed off and replaced by Josephine.)

On the presentation side, a near-constant annoyance for me was the fact that this film was tinted. Outdoor daylight scenes were tinted yellow or green (I can't tell which for sure due to being somewhat colorblind), outdoor night scenes being blue, and scenes involving fires, explosions, and fiery crashes (of which there are several) being tinted red. Scenes that take place indoors were tinted inconsistently, sometimes just in the native black and whit, but other-times in yellow/green or blue, depending on whether the light is on or not. I understand that this wasn't an uncommon practice back when this film was made, but it annoys me whenever I come across it. Maybe it's my color blindness or maybe it's just my love of the black-and-white medium (which is tied to my color blindness, according to at least two different wags I know), but I view it as a strike against a film, no matter how much I otherwise enjoy it. It's especially annoying to me when the tinting is applied inconsistently like it's done here.

In the end though, the good parts of "Juve vs. Fantômas" vastly outweigh the bad parts--and the finale makes up for any and all sins committed during its run-time. I will have to implement Fantômas Fridays for the rest of November so I can see how things turn out! 

If you have an interest in the history of film and where genre conventions come from, or if you just want to enjoy a fast-paced, old-timey crime drama, I think you'll find watching "Juve vs. Fantômas".

'Suspense' is one of the earliest cinematic thrillers... and it's still highly effective

Suspense (1913)
Starring: Lois Weber, Sam Kaufman, Valentine Paul, Douglas Gerard, and Lule Warrenton
Directors: Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

A young woman (Weber) is home alone with baby when a homicidal hobo (Kaufman) decides to break into the isolated house.

"Suspense" is a film that lives up to its title. It's a very early cinematic thriller that doesn't waste a second of its ten-minute running time on anything that doesn't build suspense. From establishing the house's isolation, to presenting the home invader in a sinister fashion, though the husband's desperate attempt to make it home to save his wife after her plea for help is cut off in mid-sentence... it's all edge-of-your-seat stuff. The film is strengthened further by fairly restrained performances (compared to what you might find in other films from this time).

What makes "Suspense" even more entertaining and engaging for modern viewers is the creative and, for the time, innovative approach taken in the cinematography. There's an impressive use of three-way split-screen at various points in the film when the wife is on the phone with her husband, as the deadly intruder is drawing closer. There are also numerous shots that use mirrors to expand the visual depth of a scene, or to allow the viewer to see what is going on in two different directions. Overall, the way the film elegantly shows events happening simultaneously at different locations, or tries to give a sense of a 360-degree view of the unfolding action, is exciting stuff even more than 115 years later. (The only thing that keeps this film from getting a Ten of Ten rating is that the ending isn't quite what it could have been, I think. But it's a very narrow miss.)

Several different versions of "Suspense" is available for viewing on YouTube. It can also be found streaming on Netflix as part of the "Early Women Filmmakers" package under the Classics category. The Netflix version has a better musical soundtrack than any of the ones I checked out on YouTube, but for those of you without Netflix who want to take ten minutes to watch this great film, I've embedded the best of the YouTube versions below.


Trivia: Lois Weber appeared in over 140 films, and she directed or co-directed roughly 100 of those. During the early 1920s, she was counted among Universal Pictures' best directors, but after her personal production company went bankrupt, her career stalled.

I want to warn you off of 'Midnight Warning'

Midnight Warning (1932) (aka "Eyes of Mystery" and "The Midnight Warning")
Starring: William Boyd, Hooper Atchley, Huntley Gordon, Lloyd Whitlock, Claudia Dell, John Harron, and Phillips Smalley
Director: Spencer Gordon Bennett
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

After Dr. Walcott (Atchley) is nearly killed by a sniper, ace detective Thorwalt Cornish (Boyd) sets out to find the culprit, as well as why someone would want to assassinate his good friend. He discovers that the staff of hotel is keeping a secret... a secret someone is apparently willing to kill for.

For about half of its running time, "Midnight Warning" is a by-the-numbers detective film, with William Boyd serving as a low-rent Sherlock Holmes and Hooper Atchley doubling as the Dr. Watson figure and the crime victim that is "the client." Then, as one mystery is solved, the film moves into thriller territory, as the heroes uncover an apparent and mysterious conspiracy between hotel managers and city officials that involve a vanishing guest and an apparent effort to make the world believe that Enid Van Buren (Claudia Dell) insane, to the point of attempting to drive her truly mad. Finally, as the conspiracy begins to unravel, the film moves into horror territory, as the conspirators make one final push to keep their secret and silence Enid for good.

The progression through genres as the plot evolves is interesting and it would make for an excellent movie if not for two reasons: First, the horror portion of the film comes with a level of silliness that must have been eye-rolling even back in the 1930s; and, second, the film's ultimate resolution is so outrageous that it should offend the sensibilities of even the most hardcore believer in the notion that the government and our "betters" are always right. I'm going to break with habit and spoil the ending of the film and reveal that not only do the villains get away with their abuses, but virtually every character in the film becomes aware of the full scope of what they did, and they all apparently go "oh, okay... whatever."

No matter how generous I try to be, I can't suspend my disbelief to accept that a woman who was deliberately targeted for destruction by a group of rich and powerful men would just let them get away with it; I can't believe that her protective fiance would just let them get away with it; I can't believe a police consultant they manipulated to further their ends would just let them get away with it; and I can believe the seemingly upright Dr. Walcott would let them get way with it. I CAN believe that the Great Detective of the story would let them get away with it, because, while he seems to be in the Sherlock Holmes model, he seems to be utterly lacking in Holmes' sense of morality and desire to see justice done. He seems more interested in just solving mysteries and seeing his name in the papers. I can easily accept this character taking the stance that the hotel owners and city officials should get away with a cover-up and trying to destroy an innocent woman's life and sanity, because he has all of them over a barrel for future blackmail.

"Midnight Warning" is, until its last few minutes a moderately entertaining film that gets a bit wobbly towards end... and then goes off the rails like a train crashing into an oil refinery and exploding. I have a sequel in my head where Enid and her fiance (possibly aided by Walcott) take their revenge, and that imaginary film is probably why I'm rating this the lowest possible Four. The ending is so atrocious that it soured me on everything that came before.

This is not a film I can recommend... unless you've set yourself the goal of watching every Claudia Dell movie, or are doing a scholarly paper on the differences in films from before and after the implementation of the Hays Code for production standards.

The stars of 'Corsair' give strong performances, but are let down by a flawed script

Corsair (1931)
Starring: Chester Morris, Thelma Todd (as Alison Loyd), Frank McHugh, Mayo Methot, Fred Kholer, Ned Sparks, and Emmett Corrigan
Director: Roland West
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

It's Prohibition Era America. John Hawks (Morris), a one-time college football star grows angry and disgusted with the predatory business practises of his investment banker boss (Corrigan), and the way his boss's daughter, Alison (Todd), seems to treat him like her property and possible living sex doll, he decides to turn the tables on them by becoming a predator himself: Teaming up with the mistreated and disgruntled employees (Sparks and Methot) of bootlegger Big John (Kohler), with whom the banker is secretly in business, Hawks launches a pirating operation geared toward intercepting Big John's shipments and selling the stolen booze to the investment banker, thus making him pay for the same illicit goods twice.

As the summary above might indicate, "Corsair" is a complicated story. It is full of twists and turns and reversals. Some of these are surprisingly tragic. It's also a story that's populated with great characters... but, unfortunately, the most important of these characters are not developed to their full potential--the two main characters, John Hawks and Alison Corning.

Thelma Todd is best remembered today for her roles in comedies, but she proves in "Corsair" that she could tackle dramatic roles with just as much effectiveness. Her man-eating character in this film is so cold and self-assured that she doesn't even try to hide her dark heart and lusts. While watching the film, I had the sense that Todd's character was more than just a spoiled rich girl with a wild and independent streak, but was actually a sociopath or perhaps even a psychopath.

Unfortunately, we never see enough of Todd interacting with other characters to really know if my interpretation of her is right or wrong. She comes onto Hawks, who sees her for what and who she is and rebuffs her advances again and again. This only makes her come at him harder, and it's what eventually puts her in the middle of Hawks piracy operation, and everyone in danger (including herself and her feckless fiance).

Speaking of John Hawks, as mentioned, his character is woefully underdeveloped. We know he's an ex-football star, we know he's a man of high morals and is willing to stand by those morals... but it's never made obvious why he goes to the extremes he does, becoming a pirate with the express purpose of robbing a powerful and dangerous bootlegger just so he can stick it to a rich banker who happens to have a sociopathic daughter who set her sights on him. Maybe something happened between  Alison and John during the months he worked for her father that we aren't privy to, or maybe John saw more dirty dealings on the part of his employer beyond hard-selling little old ladies on risky investments that made more money for the firm than for them? Who can say, because there's nothing in the film to give a clearer reason for why John does what he does.

This lack of depth to John and Alison, or any dimension to their relationship with each other, makes them boring lead characters, and it causes them to be overshadowed by John's "insiders" in the bootlegger's operation--a couple, Sophie and Slim (played by Mayo Methot and Ned Sparks), who help John rob their boss because their cut will allow them to escape the yoke of crime they are laboring under. Methot, for example, has a couple of really effective scenes that deftly define her character's motivation, her relationship with Sparks, as well as inspire a great deal of sympathy from the viewers. If only Todd or Morris had been given such well-crafted scenes to perform.

Aside from the underdeveloped main characters, "Corsair" is mostly an excellent film. It's a different sort of gangster movie that's beautifully and creatively filmed--with some surprisingly modern-seeming techniques given that this is a film from 1931, from a director whose career was over at this point--and it delivers tension and suspense found all-too-rarely in the B-pictures of this period.

I say "mostly excellent" because the great parts of the film are sandwiched between absolute dreck. The opening scene is dragged out and annoying because the filmmakers obviously and clumsily try to conceal Thelma Todd's identity for as long as they could--she made this film under what was supposed to be her "new stage name", so I suspect they were going for a Big Reveal and failed. And the film's finish is absolutely awful and out of step with the rest of the movie. I won't say anything more, for risk of spoiling it, but Morris and Todd's final scene together is perhaps one of the worst bits of cinema the public has ever been subjected to.

All in all, the good in "Corsair" outweighs the bad, and I think it's worth checking out for anyone who likes 1930s crime dramas. It's also worth watching for the performances given by Ned Sparks and Mayo Methot, as well as those of Chester Morris and Thelma Todd. In each case, we get to see them play types of roles that they were rarely seen in... and they get to show that they were actors with greater range than their professional pigeon-holes allowed them to show. (One can only imagine how great Morris and Todd could have been if they had been graced with the sort of material that Sparks and Methot had to work with.)




Trivia
Alison Loyd is better known as Thelma Todd. This was the one and only time she used that "stage name", reportedly at the urging of her boyfriend, director Roland West, and a numerologist who claimed it would help her career.

Also, this was the first film role for Mayo Methot. She would go onto have a minor film career that would be over by 1940, thanks to her alcoholism and bad temper. (Once, in a drunken rage during her short marriage to Humphrey Bogart, she threatened him and dinner guests with a loaded gun.)

Finally, "Corsair" was director Roland West's last movie. His career had been waning since silent movies fell out of favor, and in 1934 he went into business with Thelma Todd as co-owner of a cafe. Following her death in 1935, he broke for good with everything Hollywood related. 

'She-Wolf of London' is a disappointment

She-Wolf of London (aka "The Curse of the Allenbys") (1946)
Starring: June Lockhart, Don Porter, Jan Wiley, Sara Haden, and Dennis Hoey
Director: Jean Yarbrough
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Young heiress Phyllis Allenby (Lockhart) comes to fear that she has fallen victim to a family curse and has begun committing grisly murders in a nearby park. Her fiance (Porter) sets about to prove her fears wrong by finding the real killer.

"She-Wolf of London" is a slightly lethargic thriller that's more of a mystery than a monster movie, despite the title. It could be that this is a movie that's become predictable given the hundreds of similar films that have been made since its release in 1946, but I pretty much knew how it was going to resolve some five-ten minutes in, as well the true reason for the Allenby curse's return.

Usually, I don't mind being right about guessing where a film is heading before it gets there, particuarly when the filmmmakers throw in some nice bits of misdirection that make me suspect I'm wrong... and the actions of Phyllis's insensitive friend Carol (Wiley) were so well orchestrated that they made me do just that--could she REALLY be that much of a bitch without trying, I had to ask myself? Unfortunately, in the case of this movie, when it does arrive at the ending I had already guessed, it completely botches it. Setting up Carol as a possibility for the she-wolf was really the only decent bit of storytelling here, everything else being very pedestrian and the ending being a suspenseless, badly written and badly staged cop-out.

I wish more effort and care had been put into giving "She-Wolf of London" a better ending. I became very interested in the film about halfway through when I realized that its storyline was very close to what the 1941 classic "The Wolf Man" (review here ) was originally supposed to be--a psychological thriller where the "werewolf" might just be a deluded psychopath whose "transformation" is a figment of a diseased mind--and this concept could have been put to far better use than it is here. I might have felt the letdown of the poorly executed ending more sharply because I got my hopes up for what was coming, but I suspect it's more likely the pathetic ending is simply the natural outcome of a production where quality wasn't a top priority. After all, this is a film set in 1890s London, with lead characters who are all British bluebloods, but none of the stars make even a halfhearted attempt at a British accent.

In the final analysis, this is a shoddy movie that is very solidly deserving of the 4/10 rating I'm giving it.

It's all very Russian...

The Drums of Jeopardy (1931)
Starring: Warner Oland, June Collyer, Lloyd Hughes, Hale Hamilton, Wallace MacDonald, Clara Blandick, and Mischa Auer
Director: George B. Seitz
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

When one of the men of the Petrov family makes his daugher pregnant, dumps her, and causes her to commit suicide, but then won't own up to his misdeed, Dr. Boris Karlov (Oland) sets out to gain revenge by seeing them all dead. He persues them halfway around the world, to America, where a secret service agent (Hamilton) and a feisty young American woman (Collyer) end up in the middle of this Russian struggle for survival and revenge.


"Drums of Jeopardy" is a nifty little thriller from the early days of talkies that's jam-packed with meldodrama, action, and humor. Its fast-paced script hardly gives the viewers a chance to realize that just about everything in this film has become almost painfully cliche in the nearly eighty years since its original release, nor does it pause long enough to really let us consider how outrageous and dimwitted the "brilliant" plan of the Federal Agents who match wits with Karlov is. We're too busy hating the slimy Russian nobleman Prince Gregor (Wallace MacDonald) who not only impregnated and dumped a poor girl, refuses to live up to what he's done and ultimately tries to sell out everyone else to save his own skin; admiring the beauty of the resourceful young Kitty Connover (June Collyer), snickering at the comic relief provided by her sharp-tongued aunt (Clara Blandick), and grinning with sinister glee as Dr. Karlov delivers zingers and pulls tricks on the good guys that allows him to take a place among the great villains of movie history 's zingers as his evil plans fall into place (an honor deserved in no small part due to an excellent performance by character actor Warner Oland who is best remembered or playing Charlie Chan and for his role in "Werewolf of London").

Another remarkable aspect of this film that sets it apart from many of its contemporaries is that it has a villain that the viewer can relate to. His daughter was violated and tossed aside by the Petrovs, so, given that this is a melodramatic thriller and we're talking about Russians here, it's only natural he'd take elaborate and final revenge against not only the Petrovs but Russian nobility in general. Karlov is a character who is almost like a tragic hero in his stature within this film and he is must more interesting than most film villains from the early days of film.

I should note that as much as I enjoyed this film, I was a little dissapointed in some apsects of how the story unfolded. I've already commented on the moronic nature of the government agents in the film, but a bigger dissapointment was that Karlov didn't really get his full revenge and we don't get to see that rat bastard Gregor die a slow and painful death. (That alone makes me wish for a remake of this movie. I'd love to see Tim Thomerson as Karlov!)

Speaking of Karlov... yes, the villain of this movie is named Boris Karlov. Given that this film is based on an American novel that was originally published in 1920, I think we can chalk this up to one of those weird coincidences. Karloff was an obscure stage actor touring Canadian backwaters at the time the book was written. (Although at least one source claims that Karloff chose his screen name because of the novel.)

'Stop Me Before I Kill!'' is flawed but watchable

Stop Me Before I Kill! (aka "The Full Treatment") (1960)
Starring: Ronald Lewis, Claude Dauphin, and Diane Cilento
Director: Val Guest
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A race car driver, Alan Colby (Lewis), recovering from a near-fatal car accident finds himself possessed by nearly uncontrollable urges to murder his wife (Cilento) whenever they are intimate. She convinces him to seek the help of a psychiatrist (Dauphin), but things go from bad to worse when the good doctor proves to have agendas beyond helping his patient recover.

"Stop Me Before I Kill!" (a far weaker title than the original, "The Full Treatment"), has the makings of an excellent psychological thriller, with a cast of characters who each seem simple enough on the surface, but who also each have enough murkiness in their backgrounds that they may be driven by motivations more sinister than the obvious. While it offers some clever twists, it ultimately the film ends up where you expect it to, but enough doubt is thrown on the outcome along the way that the film is still enjoyable.

However, a couple of key missteps keep it from being as good as it could have been.

First of all, the film is a bit too scattered as far as its point of view goes. While most of the film, correctly, is focused around our main protagonist--Alan, the strangely unhinged accident survivor--and events unfold as seen from his point of view, a couple of parts are focused around his well-meaning fiance. While the second of these isn't that damaging to the overall film, especially since it is part of the final confrontation between the film's main characters, the first one is feels like a detour from the rest of the movie that needed to be handled very differently.

Second, the creepy psychiatrist gets way too creepy, way too fast. He is so strange and unpleasant from the very outset that there is never any question in the minds of viewers that he is a Bad Guy. Partway through the movie, as he gains the trust of the protagonist, a little bit of doubt about whether we've misjudged him begins to creep in, but even before we're done second-guessing ourselves, the film proves that we were right all along: Not only is a he a Bad Guy, but he's a Very Bad Guy.

The film, which director Guest co-wrote the script for, would have been much better served if the psychiatrist had come across more likable early on, and then taken on a little bit of shadow and sinisterness as Alex grows increasingly paranoid and obviously nuts. It would have helped the film's overall "just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you"-vibe. It would also have strengthened the what-is-now a fairly half-hearted effort to make the wife look like she is out to get Alex, too. Her background hints that she may have reasons, but the way the film is structured never quite makes it believable that she may have it in for him. And in films like this, it's important that at one or more points in the story, the protagonist appears to be all alone and beset by enemies on all sides.

Fairly typical of the thrillers and dramas that were Hammer's bread-and-butter before the studio discovered full-color monsters and babes in flimsy nightgowns, "Stop Me Before I Kill Again!" is not necessarily a film I would go out of my way to seek out, but it's a bit of non-offensive filler in "Icons of Suspense," the multi-film DVD collection of Hammer's black-and-white co-productions with Columbia Pictures.

United States threatened by Chinese brainwashing plot!

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Starring: Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury, James Gregory, Janet Leigh, Laurence Harvey, Leslie Parrish, and Henry Silva
Director: John Frankenheimer
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A Korean War vet (Sinatra) fights off brainwashing and becomes the only man who can stop a far-reaching plot by the Chinese to place their handpicked agent in the highest elected office of the United States--the Presidency.

"The Manchurian Candidate" is one of those movies that truly is a classic. Not only is it spectacular film--with a suspenseful script, great camera work and even greater acting by everyone who appears on screen. Although over two hours in lenght, the film doesn't contain a dull moment, and you will absolutely grow to hate Angela Lansbury's evil, power-at-any-cost bitch of a political femme fatale.

While some of the details may date this movie, the characters and storyline remain as fresh and relevant-seeming today as they were in 1962. While I find the entire film engrossing, with one tiny exception, I find it particularly interesting that while I felt sympathy for Alexander Sebastian in "Notorious" (review here), I have nothing but contempt and disgust for Senator John Iselin (James Gregory) in this film. Both characters are men who are dominated by evil mothers with similar goals in mind. Perhaps the difference is that there seems to be a spark of decency in Sebastian, while Iselin is nothing but a perverted puppet of his twisted mother. Maybe it's the way we see Sebastian's heart break when he discovers that he has been betrayed by the woman he loves, and we have no similar moment to make Iselin less gross.


Speaking women and love, the romantic element of this film is the one part of it that I simply couldn't buy. As much as I thought both Frank Sinatra and Janet Leigh were great in their parts (as good as any in their careers, not to mention unique), the Insta-Romance that sprang up between them when they met on the train just didn't ring true to me. I kept expected her to be revealed as a spy of some sort--that the romantic attraction was part of the brainwashing, or that she was perhaps an American agent of some sort. Neither came to pass in the film. I suppose this is another similarity I see between this film and Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious"... the film's hero and heroine have a forced romance Just Because.

With the exception of the romance misstep, "The Manchurian Candidate" is a fabulous political thriller that I think fans of the genre definitely need to see.

Maybe this is why your mom told you,'Never talk to strangers'?

Strangers on a Train (1951)
Starring: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Laura Elliot (aka Casey Rogers) and Patricia Hitchcock
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

A professional tennis player (Granger) has what he believes is an idle conversation with a very strange fan (Walker) while traveling by train. The fan proposes that he kill the athlete's slutty, unfaithful wife (Elliot), who is denying him a divorce, white the tennis player kills his domineering father. It's the perfect murder, as neither of them have a motive to kill their victim and no one knows they know each other. Although the athlete refuses to take part in the scheme, his wife turns up murdered, and the man from the train appears on his doorstep and demands that he follow through with his part of the arrangement.



"Strangers on a Train" is one of Hitchcock's finest movies. The performances from all the actors are top-notch, with Farley Granger playing his part so effectively that even when it's obvious that he repulsed at the idea of committing murder when it his proposed to him--escially the murder of someone he doesn't even know--there is still just intrigued enough that he might give into the temptation to be rid of his nasty wife.

Co-star Robert Walker is equally excellent as the psychopath who is intent on forcing Granger to be his partner in murder. From his first appearance, the audience can tell that there's something queer about Walker's character--and I'm using that word in any sense you choose to apply it--even if he he initially seems nice enough, if just a bit socially awkward. As the film unfolds, and we become fully aware of just how deranged and evil this man is, Walker becomes the main source of tension in the film... a threat greater to Granger and those he cares about than even the possibility of being arrested for a murder he didn't commit.

Aside from the great acting "Strangers on a Train" is also a showcase for perfection in film editing; if it's not being used in film studies classes, it should be. There is not a wasted second anywhere in its running-time, and the third act is nail-biter it thanks primarily to the editing. The sequence where Granger has to finish and WIN a tennis competition in record time so he can stop Walker from planting incriminating evidence framing Granger once and for all at the murder scene is absolutely spectacular. The same is true of the way we follow Walker on his trip back to the scene of the crime with the damning evidence in hand. Finally, there is the rightfully celebrated climactic and deadly confrontation between Granger and Walker on a out-of-control carousel, a symbolic fight pushed to the height of suspense by artful use of cinematic tricks.

If you have watched and liked any Hitchcock films, I believe you absolutely must see this movie. That goes double if you are an aspiring writer or filmmaker yourself. Few movies are a better one-stop showcase for how to do this right than "Strangers on a Train."

Nazi scientists plot revenge on England

Counterblast (aka "The Devil's Plot") (1948)
Starring: Mervyn Johns, Robert Beatty, and Nova Pilbeam
Director: Paul Stein
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A Nazi scientist (Johns) escapes from a British prison camp and murders and assumes the identity of a bacteriologist recently returned to Britain after decades abroad. In this guise, he continues developing deadly biological weapons as part of a plot to avenge Germany's defeat in WW2. Pressure on him grows, and risk of exposure becomes ever greater, as another scientist (Beatty) becomes suspicious, he is forced to take a well-meaning woman (Pilbeam) on as an assistant, and other Nazis start to press him to speed up his research. Will something give before a deadly plague is unleashed upon the English countryside?


"Counterblast" is a well-acted, well-written thriller. The complexity of the characters, particularly Johns' Nazi scientist, makes the film even more engaging and elevates beyond so many other similar films. Pilbeam, in one of her last roles before her retirement from screen acting, puts on an excellent show as always, as the young woman who travels half way around the world to take a position with the man she believes to be an old and good friend of her father's, only to find herself increasingly isolated and ever deeper involved in a deadly and monstrous research project. As in other roles she played, she projects a charming mix of vulnerability and independence. She is the perfect foil for the handsome, romantic Beatty... and it's easily believable that the young doctor would fall in love with her as quickly as he does.

"Counterblast" is a rarely seen post-WW2 drama, but I think it's worth tracking down, particularly if you are a fan of Nova Pilbeam (an actress whose work isn't given the recognition it deserves).

What secret hides in 'The Red House'?

The Red House (aka "No Trespassing") (1947)
Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Allene Roberts, Lon McCallister, Rory Calhoun, Judith Anderson, and Julie London
Director: Delmer Daves
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

The summer teenaged Meg (Roberts) and her friends stand on the verge of adulthood, is the summer they decide to explore the woods on the lands owned by her adopted father (Robinson), over his objections. Soon, secrets that have been buried deep in the forest since Meg was a baby are dragged back into the light, with tragic and deadly consequences.


"The Red House" is a well-paced, expertly acted thriller where country-folk are neither simple nor neighborly.

The cast are all perfect in their roles, with Edward G. Robinson (who transforms from an eccentric, crabby farmer into a menacing, murderous pervert, as his vener is gradually stripped away) and Allene Roberts (who changes from a shy, romantic girl into a young woman willing to risk everything to learn the secrets of her past) give particularly noteworthy performances.

The camera-work and the staging are also very impressive. The way the woods change between day and night are very impressively done, with the menace present when Meg's friend and object of her puppy-love (McCallister) tries to take a shortcut them during a storm, but completely absent during the light of day. The musical score is also extremely well-done and probably somewhat ahead of its time. (My biggest complaint about movies from the 1930s, 1940s, and into the 1950s is that oftentimes the music soundtrack almost seems random in its emotional quality and often not even close to being in sync with what's happening on screen. That can't be said for the music here--it enhances and moves the story along with as much force as the actors and the dialogue they deliver.)

I have nothing but praise for this film, so I think it a sad fact that it is on the verge of becoming "lost." I've seen two different versions of it on DVD--one that so badly hacked up the final scene of the film is missing, and another where the sound is so bad that it was hard to make out what was being said because of static.

If there's a film that deserves to be restored and preserved it's "The Red House." However, since there's no solid commercial hook here, and the film can't be considered "historical", it'll probably never happen.

Despite the poor quality of the sound, "The Red House" is one of the many movies included in the "Dark Crimes 50 Movie Mega-pack" and the even bigger "100 Mysteries" set that made those sets worth the asking price.

Excellent thriller from the Britain's Premiere House of Horror

Scream of Fear (aka "Taste of Fear") (1961)
Starring: Susan Strasberg, Ronald Lewis, Ann Todd and Christopher Lee
Director: Seth Holt
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Wheelchair-bound Penny (Strasberg) returns to her wealthy father's house for the first time in ten years, only to be told by his new wife Jane (Todd) that he has gone away suddenly on a business trip. When her father's corpse starts to appear and disappear around the property, Penny enlists the help of hunky chauffeur Robert (Lewis) to help her prove her sanity.


"Scream of Fear" is a plot any fan of suspense and horror movies has encountered at least twice--a vulnerable woman seems to be losing her mind but in truth someone is trying to drive her insane--but it's rarely been done as well as it is here. This is truly one Hammer Films' great films and it's a crime that it took so long to get it on DVD.

Extremely well-acted and brilliantly cast, every performer and every line they deliver in the film plays into the fact that no one in the household is quite who they seem and everyone is keeping at least one secret. Take Christopher Lee for example. He plays a French doctor who is a very insensitive cold fish, but is he cohoots with the bad guys or is he just a jerk? Or is there something going on under the surface that has yet to be revealed? With Lee, who split his screen time evenly between playing heroes and villains, it's impossible to guess until the Big Reveal at the end.

The film is also very well constructed and finely paced from a story perspective. From the opening scene to the twist-laden climactic final few minutes, "Scream of Fear" builds the tension and terror not with the "gotcha!" scares that are so popular with filmmakers these days, but through storytelling methods that are almost entirely relegated to the written medium these days; it builds its tension through character development and by continuially deeping the film's mysteries and by reversing, double-reversing and triple reversing the audience's expectations about exactly what is going on in the film. (I've seen a dozen or so movies built around the same formula as this one, so I thought I had the story figured out fairly early on, but then a twist made me doubt my conclusion... the a little seemingly throwaway detail made me think I'd been right... and another twist showed I was completely wrong... but then a third twist got me thinking I had been right from the outset... and so on, right up to the point where various plots, schemes and deceptions of the film's characters are revealed. (Although even after that, the film has one more twist to deliver....)


Too many writers these days are turning out suspense and horror scripts with "twist endings" that they think show how clever they are. Instead, all they end up showing is how little talent or how lazy they are, because their twist endings are hardly ever based in the story and their stories are weak and badly structured. Perhaps, if these hacks would use "Scream of Fear" instead of simply "Scream" as the film to emulate, they might be able to turn out decent work.

"Scream of Fear" is only available on DVD as part of the "Icons of Horror: Hammer Films" four movie pack, a collection of excellent movies that is well-worth the asking price.

'Love From a Stranger' is a gripping thriller

Love From a Stranger (aka "A Night of Terror") (1937)
Starring: Ann Harding and Basil Rathbone
Director: Rowland V. Lee
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Carol (Harding) wins the lottery and marries the perfect man (Rathbone) all within the space of a few months. The honeymoon's barely over, however, before she realizes he is not be what he seems. Carol soon finds herself in a contest of will and wits where her very life may be at stake.


"Love From a Stranger" is a remarkable thriller based on a story by Agatha Christie. It's a bit too slow in the build-up, but once it gets going, it's tense, exciting, and lots of fun. It's definitely a movie you want to stay with, because you'll be greatly rewarded for your patience. The final scenes of this movie are perhaps the best featured in any Christie adaptation, but it's only the greatest of many fantastic moments in the film.

Part of what makes this film great is the fact that it dates from a time when filmmakers had mastered the use of light and shadow in the black-and-white media to heighten suspense and tension. This may not be a "film noir" movie, but several of the scenes are lit and filmed with such style that film noir masters hopefully studied them. (The final scene is a particularly excellent example of this.)

The film's success is really due to the spectacular performances of Ann Harding and Basil Rathbone. It's the sort of a caliber that we don't see nearly enough of in modern films.

Particularly remarkable are the moments where Harding realizes she is married to a lunatic, and later, where it dawns her her that her very life depends on the next thing that comes out of her mouth. It both these scenes, Harding conveys more with her facial expressions than pages of dialogue would be able to do.

Similarly, Rathbone displays an amazing range in his performance here. He starts out as the ultimately gentleman, moves slowly into arrogance, barely concealed menace, and ultimately into fullblown insanity. The extended, crazy rant he delivers during this film is so over-the-top and so intense that even Jack Nicholson can only reach such heights in his dreams. (If you've only seen Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, you've only seen a tiny fraction of what he is capable of on screen.)

"Love From a Stranger" is one of those films that has slipped through the cracks of cinema and into undeserved obscurity. If you like psychological thrillers, or if you're a fan of Basil Rathbone or Ann Harding, you need to see this movie.

(And here's a bit of trivia for Christie Completists: Joan Hickson, who at the end of her career would play spinster detective Miss Marple on British and American TV during the 1980s and 1990s, has a small role in this film at the beginning of her career, appearing as Emmy.)