'Half Shot at Sunrise' is more than halfway decent

Half Shot at Sunrise (1930)
Starring: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Dorothy Lee, Leni Stengel, George MacFarlane, Edna May Oliver, and Jack Rutherford, and Edgar DeLange
Director: Paul Sloane
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A couple soldiers (Wheeler and Woolsey) are having the time of their lives AWOL in Paris during WWI, ducking MPs and happily hitting on every woman they see. When one of them  falls in love with the Colonel's teenaged daughter (Lee), and she decides to help his military career, things start to get complicated.

"Half Shot at Sunrise" is a supremely silly movie  that is light on plot but heavy on shenanigans and clever quips and offhanded double-entrendres. You'll hardly notice the lack of plot though, as Wheeler and Woolsey keep the jokes and tricks flowing non-stop, and when Dorothy Lee is added to the mix things get even wilder. If you like madcap military comedies, I think you'll enjoy this film quite a bit.

That said, it's not a perfect movie. The main drawback are the songs/musical numbers--which are . They are not all that good, and they interrupt the film's momentum and stop it dead in its tracks. I did enjoy the goofy dance routines that came with each song, but they were not enough to make up for the lameness of the music. These dragged my rating of this otherwise fun movie down from a low Eight to what was almost a Six on my 0-10 scale.

Another flaw was a serious romantic subplot involving the colonel's oldest daughter and a straight-laced Army lieutenant that ran along side the antics of the three main characters. While it served as a nice counterpoint to the Wheeler/Woolsey/Lee clown show, and brought a little dimension to some of the supporting characters, it really just made me wish for more of the clown show. It wasn't as damaging to the flow of the film as the weak musical numbers, but it didn't really add that much in the final analysis.

"Half Shot at Dawn" is one of nine films included in the Wheeler and Woolsey: RKO Comedy Classics Collection. That collection is a broad sampling of their films for RKO that stretches from the beginning of their contract until its end, and it includes some of their biggest hits.

Doughboy Double Feature!

High Cs (1930)
Starring: Charley Chase, Carlton Griffin, Thelma Todd, Otto Fries, Harry Schultz, Lucien Prival, and the Ranch Boys band
Director: James W. Horne
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A WWI doughboy (Chase), who'd rather sing than fight, tricks the Germans into thinking the war is over so he can recruit one of their soldiers (Fries) into his musical quartet.

"High C's" is different than most other Charley Chase films I've watched so far. First, it's more loosely structured than any of the others. Rather than the film being structured around a tightly plotted sequence of jokes and gags that build upon each other until the film's finale this one breaks into three distinct sections that are only loosely connected. It's still a well-enough crafted story, though.

There's also more music in this film than any of the previous ones I've seen from Chase, which actually explains the different structure of the film. It's not so much a comedy short as a mini-musical, as such it's built around the musical numbers rather than gags.

Despite being different than what I had expected, I enjoyed "High Cs" immensely. Charley Chase was on the top of his game, and the supporting cast were all equally excellent. Thelma Todd, who portrays Chase's love interest, was a joy to watch as always when she's paired with Chase; and Carlton Griffin and Lucien Prival were great fun as the villainous, self-important officers on the Allied and German sides of the trenches respectively.

This isn't the strongest of Charley Chase's films, but it's still got good music and some really funny moments. The sequence where they fake the end of World War 1 just to capture and recruit a German soldier into the band, as well as the closing song, are must-sees for fans of old-time musical comedy.

Rough Seas (1931)
Starring: Charley Chase, Carlton Griffin, Thelma Todd, Frank Brownlee, and the Ranch Boys band
Director: James Parrott
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

The war is over and Charley (Chase) is being shipped back to the States and civilian life. But he needs to find a way to get his French girlfriend (Todd) and his pet monkey safely onboard the transport ship without his commanding officer (Griffin) knowing.

"Rough Seas" is a sequel to "High Cs", and it, too, is a mini-musical comedy. It picks up all the story threads from "High Cs", and brings along all the supporting characters from the first film, while adding a couple new complications. I was particularly impressed at the attention to detail shown in continuing to develop a somewhat morbid gag from the first film around the tenor whose voice was ruined because he got shot in the Adam's apple. It was another example of how the Charley Chase films should be remembered among the best Roach productions, because they were crafted with a level of care that became increasingly hard to find as the 1930s wore on.

Overall, this is a simple film where the ship-board antics of Chase's character as he tries to keep himself, his monkey, and his stowaway girlfriend out of the cross-hairs of his superiors are mostly a vehicle to get us from musical number to musical number. What plot we do have is a sweet little love story between Charley and Thelma (who, although she has less to do in this film than the monkey, the chemistry she shared with Chase once again leaps off the screen), which also exposes the truly vile nature of Carlton Griffin's officer character; it's satisfying to see him finally get put in his place.

This was the second-to-last Charley Chase film that Thelma Todd would appear in. She was quickly becoming a popular comedienne, and producer Hal Roach didn't want to "waste" her in supporting roles. Even as this film was being made, the stage was being set for her to co-star with ZaSu Pitts in her own series. The films she headlined 40 films, but few were of the quality of the ones she made with Chase.

'War Mamas' is mildly amusing

War Mamas (1931)
Starring: ZaSu Pitts, Thelma Todd, Guinn Williams, Alan Lane, Stuart Holmes, and Charles Judel
Director: Marshall Neilan
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A pair of WWI nurses (Pitts and Todd) take a wrong turn and end up behind the German lines together with their prank-playing US Army boyfriends (Alan Lane and Guinn Williams). After being sheltered by a sympathetic French noblewoman, the girls concoct a plan to get safely back to friendly territory.

"War Mamas" is a war-time comedy that is full of jokes and gags that were probably well-worn even in 1931. If you loved "Hogan's Heroes", you're bound to get a kick out of this film, even though the timeframe is WW1 rather than WW2: The German officers are the same loud, self-important dimwits, and the Americans are the same plucky tricksters who run circles around them.

Although it might not have you laughing out loud, I think at the very least everyone will watch "War Mamas" with a smile on their faces. There's never a dull moment, and while none of the gags are innovative, they're all well-executed. The cast all do a great job in their parts, but everyone is pretty much also playing roles they've done numerous times before... and will play again in future productions from Hal Roach and other studios, big and small. The highlights of the film is the bit where Thelma Todd is standing between two bellowing Germans, a German officer is trying to seduce ZaSu Pitts,  is the strip poker game our heroines play with the German officers.


"War Mamas" is one of 17 short films that co-starred Thelma Todd and ZaSu Pitts. They are available in the Thelma Todd & ZaSu Pitts: The Hal Roach Collection, 1931 - 1933.

'Revolt of the Zombies' is a non-event

(I like the poster though.)

Revolt of the Zombies (1936)
Starring: Dean Jagger and Dorothy Stone
Director: Victor Halperin
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

At the height of World War I, a French officer (Jagger) brings to his generals the ultimate weapon: the secret to creating impervious zombie soldiers! Unfortunately, before the Cambodian monk can be made to share this secret with the Europeans, he is murdered by a sinister enemy agent. A military expedition is sent to the darkest heart of Cambodia's jungles to see if the secret can be recovered.

"Revolt of the Zombies" actually has a really interesting plot at its heart. Too bad the filmmakers completely botched this movie, with awful dialogue and pacing that is at once too slow and too fast--important events happen off-screen and are then relayed to the viewers by the characters in boring exposition. Worse, the movie ultimately chickens out in regards to both its use of zombies in the story AND in regards to what seemed to have been its message about the negative impact of European colonialism with an "absolute power corrupts absolutely." What's more... there ain't no damn zombie revolt in the film (but that's because there aren't any real zombies, either).

I probably would have shrugged my shoulders at this one--it's just another low-budget, crappy horror film--but it was made as a follow-up to the fabulous "White Zombie." I expected more of "Revolt of the Zombies" because "White Zombie" is a dyed-in-the-wool classic horror film, one of the best zombie movies ever made (and perhaps even the *first* zombie movie ever made), and it was as low-budget as "Revolt."




Click here to read my review of "White Zombie" at The Bela Lugosi Collection.

Bi-planes buzz through dawn of talkies in 'Hell's Angels'

Hell's Angels (1930)
Starring: Ben Lyon, James Hall, and Jean Harlow
Director: Howard Hughes
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

When WWI breaks out, two very different brothers (Lyon and Hall) join the infant RAF... and become two of the first War in the Heavens' many unsung heroes. Along the way, zeppelins are blown up, bi-planes crashed, hearts broken, and war lays bare the true nature of both men.


I thought I'd like this movie more than I did. Perhaps I'd wanted to see it for so long, and I'd heard so many good things about it that my expectations were too high.

The characters were decent and well-defined--I felt very sorry for the more British-than-British and honorable-to-the-bone Roy Rutledge, who gets abused by his slutty girlfriend (Harlow) and his cowardly brother, despite his loyalty to and love for both--the lines between the good guys and bad guys are clearly drawn--the German officers are shown to throw away the lives of their men with barely the slightest hesitation, while the British officers concoct dangerous schemes to weaken the enemy and preserve the lives of their troops--and the film features spectacular action sequences--the battle of the zeppelins over London is the movie's high point, but the battle above the German lines during the daring bombing run a depot far behind enemy lines.

It's definitely a well done movie, but it's a movie that's shows its age. Despite the well-defined characters and great action scenes, it, like so many of the early talkies, feels like it's struggling with the new medium of sound. The actors in particular are still performing as though they are in a silent movie, and just about every emotion and action is so exaggerated that many of them come off as being bad actors.

I think the film also suffers from the fact that extended sequences are shot using early versions of color film, which basically boiled down to everything appearing in varying tones of blue (during many of the aerial scenes) or greens and reds (like during the grand charity ball where we first discover that the love of Roy's life, Helen, is something of a slut) instead of the shades of gray that's typical for a black-and-white movie. While its impressively adventuresome of Hughes to be utilizing that technology at such an early time, it was used with such greater effectiveness in "Doctor X" that they "color" sequences mostly annoyed me than thrilled me. And I wasn't exactly thrilled by the duo-tone in "Doctor X", but they did some impressive and impactful things with the color there... here, the filmmakers just seemed to take the stance that color was enough in-and-of-itself and there was no need to get terribly creative with it.

Despite being disappointed, I still think this is a good movie, and it's a film that everyone who considers themselves a film-bluff should see. I should probably be embarrassed for not having sought it out early, but I also can't remember the last time I've seen it for sale or rent. (I'm glad I waited though, because the UCLA-spearheaded restoration I was was a spectacular work, and I recommend that you seek out that version, if you are looking for the film.)

Early spy thriller from Alfred Hitchcock disappoints

Secret Agent (1936)
Starring: John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll and Robert Young
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

British Intelligence fakes the death of author Edgar Brodie (Gielgud) so he can be sent to Switzerland on a mission to find and assassinate a German spy at the height of World War I. He is assisted by the coldhearted General (Lorre) and the gung-ho newbie spy Elsa (Carroll), and together they find the rewards of being spies are hardly ever worth the dangers and damage to conscience and morals the work demands.


"Secret Agent" is a mess of a movie. It's got some fine actors performing great characters; it's captures the moral ambiguity of patriotism and duty to country when it is performed in the shadowy world of secret intelligence work; and it has several thrilling and/or incredibly well-staged sequences--with the meeting at the church, the mountain hike, and the chocolate factory chase being foremost among these. What the film doesn't have is a coherent script. Its many great elements never quite come together, we never quite get a sense that anything in the film really matters, much of it doesn't make any sense--starting with Brodie's recruitment by British Intelligence, which means the entire movie is standing on a trembling foundation--and to say the ending feels rushed is a massive understatement.

This is the first Hitchcock film I've seen that actually disappointed me. I'm sure there will be others, but I was surprised at how weak this one is overall, given the relative high regard others seem to hold it in. Out of the Hitchcock films I've seen, this is the first one I feel I should recommend viewers to stay away from.

It's Spy vs Spy in this Karloff-starring WW2 propaganda film

British Intelligence (aka "Enemy Agent")(1940)
Starring: Margaret Lindsay, Boris Karloff, and Holmes Herbert
Director: Terry Morse
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

It's World War I. The German high command dispatches the beautiful master-spy Helene (Lindsay) to London to help the legendary German agent Strengler infiltrate of the very highest levels of the British war ministry. But British Intelligence have uncovered Strengler's ring, and they've inserted a double-agent into it. But which of the German spies is truly loyal to Britain? The milkman? The minister's secretary? Or maybe this is a case where the butler (Karloff) truly can't be trusted? Who will carry the day in the game of spy vs. spy double-crosses?



"British Intelligence" is a nice little spy movie with healthy doses of World War II propaganda. Despite its outdated political messages, the film is still fun to watch today for anyone who enjoys spy movies.

The film offers of a steady stream of plot twists and turns as British and German agents and double-agents try to trap and outwit each other. It is is well directed, with fine acting, great lighting and camera work, and no padding whatsoever. The final chase scene through the streets of London as it is being bombed by German zeppelins is very tense and expertly executed.

And, although we might think that Boris Karloff has GOT to be the mysterious master spy Spengler--he's Boris Karloff and the's got that creepy scar--the film is so well-crafted that it proves us wrong time again. Karloff may be creepy in the film, but is he a hero or a villain? The film will almost be an an end before we know for sure!

On the downside, the film starts to feel a little like a "Spy Vs. Spy" cartoon (from the old "MAD Magazine") toward the end, and the ending that I'm sure must have seemed ironic or poetic to viewers in the 1940s feels EXACTLY like the end of a "Spy Vs. Spy" cartoon.

Still, the film held my interest until the end, and it's a nice little time capsule featuring a tight story and fine performances. It's political message might be dated, but it's still a film that's worth seeing today.