'To Save Her Soul' turns terrible at the end

To Save Her Soul (1909)
Starring: Mary Pickford, Arthur V. Johnson, George Nichols, and William Beaudine

Director: D.W. Griffith

Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A beautiful young woman with an equally beautiful voice (Pickford) is put onto the path of a successful showbusiness career after a chance encounter with a theatrical producer (Nichols). A young pastor in her hometown (Johnson) is in love (or maybe just in lust) with her, and he follows her to the big city, in hopes of convincing her to return with him.

I generally don't have the patience for silent dramas, because the pacing combined with the overwrought performance styles and melodramatic pantomiming used by the actors to communicate emotions either bore me or make me laugh. 

A notable exception are short films from D.W. Griffith. Every one of them I've seen so far has moved along at a breakneck pace and has been augmented by staging and framing of scenes that are at the same time reminiscent of renaissance paintings and modern-feeling. Griffith was one of the early masters of the cinematic medium, and that's what makes his short films entertaining to this day.

"To Save Her Soul" is no exception. It clips along at a quick pace. While there's plenty of overly dramatic emoting and even some overacting, the two leads--Pickford and Johnson--have enough presence and charisma that their screen presence shines through that. Pickford is, as always, excellent in her part. 

With that said, I'm going to break format and present "To Save Her Soul" for your viewing pleasure here in the middle of this post instead of at the end. This is because the rest of this review reveals the film's ending and thus may spoil it for you.

The story of "To Save Her Soul" is fairly engaging... and it becomes even more so when the handsome lead makes a transition from a concerned would-be suitor to the young singer to a crazed stalker and religious fanatic who is going to murder her, ostensibly to save her soul (as the title implies) but more basically because if he can't possess her completely and wholly, she cannot be allowed to live.

But, ultimately, that character transition is what undoes this movie. Instead of treating the pastor like the vicious monster that he is, the film sets him up as a literal savior: After he literally points a gun at Pickford's character's face and threatens to murder her if she doesn't surrender to his whims and desires (and his whims and desires alone), the young woman surrenders to him completely, leaving behind the life of sinful showbusiness to be his sex slave before the Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay, I probably put a far darker spin on the film's final moments than Griffith intended, but the ending of "To Save Her Soul" is seriously messed up. Even when allowing for more than a century of shifting social standards, the "hero" of this film should have been a villain that one of the show biz folk wrestled with, and ultimately shot with his own gun. That is how this film should have ended, and I would have given it Eight or Nine Stars.

'Torchy Blane in Chinatown' is misnamed

Torchy Blane in Chinatown (1939)
Starring: Barton MacLane, Glenda Farrell, Tom Kennedy, Patric Knowles, and Richard Bond
Director: William Beaudine
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A shadowy group of Chinese assassins are killing those involved with stealing Jade burial tablets from a powerful family. Will police detective Steve McBride (MacLane) stop the killers before they finish marking names off their hit-list, and will his girlfriend and reporter Torchy Blane (Farrell) keep her promise about keeping the details of his investigation of of the papers?

"Torchy Blane in Chinatown" is a major step down quality-wise from the five previous installments of this series. While it mostly avoids the racist stereotypes you'd expect from a film of this time period, it doesn't deliver anything that the title promises... unless the title character Torchy Blane spent all the time she was missing from the screen in Chinatown.

Yes, despite this supposedly being a film about Torchy Blane in Chinatown, no time is actually spent in Chinatown, and comic relief character Gahagan (Tom Kennedy) has more impact on the action than Torchy does. (Well, not quite; there's some dialogue at the end that tells us that Torchy was doing things off camera, but that's no way to treat what is supposed to be the main character).

As bad as it is that we get to see very little of Glenda Farrell and Torchy in this picture, it's even worse that the mystery here is so simple that I had it mostly figured out as of the first of three murders. But what pushed this film down to a Four Rating--and only its brief running-time of barely an hour, combined with Torchy not ending up as a damsel in distress like in the last two films saved it from getting Three Stars--was the way the story only worked if the characters behave like complete idiots and contrary to all common sense. Twice, the villains' master plot should have been stopped dead in its tracks, but the lazy scriptwriters just turned off the brains of all the characters so it would work. (Hell, the investigation would have taken an entirely different direction--and the movie would have been even shorter--if Torchy Blane hadn't been off-screen in Chinatown for as much as she was, because she had a key to the solution early on. She even tried to tell McBride about it, but he just brushed her off with "I'm too busy to talk to you"... as he gets into his chauffeured car in which Torchy could have ridden along and told him the clue she had uncovered.)

I have been irritated by some of the far-fetched, should-have-been-career-ending shenanigans that Torchy got up in previous films, and I have been frustrated when the filmmakers made her a spectator and/or damsel in distress during the climaxes of the movies bearing her name, but none of the previous films inspired the borderline anger that this one did. I literally felt like my intelligence was being insulted--I tried to think of it as a film made for kids instead of adults (which it isn't), and I still felt it was a lazily written, badly executed story. And to add insult to injury, Gahagan is portrayed as so mind-blowingly stupid in this film that it's hard to believe he even has a job as McBride's driver. He is so dumb, in fact, that he's not even all that funny.

As for the performances and technical aspects of the film, everyone does a good job. Barton MacLane seems engaged with his part again, and the various supporting players--both the ones portraying characters unique to this film, or the returning characters at the police station--all do excellent jobs. As always, Glenda Farrell is lots of fun as Torchy... it's just a shame she doesn't get to do more, or even have a single important scene. (That's not entirely true... in retrospect, the scene where Steve McBride tells her he's too busy to talk to her is an important one, but not in a good way.)

"Torchy Blane in Chinatown" is one of the nine films included in the "Torchy Blane Collection." I think it's the first one that I've had a hard time coming up with something good to say about, so in balance, this is still a series worth checking out if like Girl Power stories and fast-talking 1930s reporters. There are two more installments in the series for me to watch... and I really hope they get better rather than worse.

Torchy is Returned to Her Roots

Torchy Gets Her Man (1938)
Starring: Glenda Farrell, Barton MacLane, Tom Kennedy, and Willard Robertson
Director: William Beaudine
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A counterfeiting ring, led by the elusive "100 Dollar Bill" Bailey (Robertson) engages in an elaborate deception to trick police detective Steve McBride (MacLane) and his superiors in the police department into thinking they are Secret Service agents conducting a sting operation and to inadvertently give them cover to operate. Meanwhile, his fiance, crime reporter Torchy Blane (Farrell), hopes those Secret Service agents will provide her with leads for her investigative article about Bailey and his career in crime, and she badgers a vacationing police officer (Kennedy) into helping her tail them.

"Torchy Blane Gets Her Man", the sixth film in this series, sees Glenda Farrell return as the character she originated... and it's great to have her back. It's also great to have the character back in full hard-nosed, dedicated crusading reporter mode, something that had faded in the two previous installments where Torchy was more a trickster and action heroine respectively.

While Farrell and the return of Classic Torchy is enough to boost this film, it is further enriched by a brazen and coldhearted villain with a clever scheme that, although I doubt it would ever work in the real world, makes for great movie entertainment. It also provides some nice old-school melodrama action during the third act with all the main characters assembled in house where a time bomb is counting down to their demise. We also get lots of Tom Kennedy's dimwitted Gahagan... and the dynamic between Torchy being the "straight-man" to his goofiness is a joy to behold. The only returning performer who doesn't shine is Barton MacLane, partly because Steve McBride is sidelined for most of the story, but also because some of the life seems to have gone out of MacLane's performance. He also appears puffier than he did in the previous three movies; perhaps he was ill, or maybe he just wasn't interested in even being on the set?

There are, however, two crucial aspects that prevent this film from being as great as it could have been. First, the film feels cheaper than previous installments, with a cramped feeling about most of the sets as well as a very sloppy use of stock footage badly matched to the sequence it's inserted into; the Torchy Blane films have always been low-budget B-pictures, but this is the first one that looks like it. Second, the story suffers from the same flaw that undermined "Torchy Blane in Panama"--Torchy ultimately ends up as a "damsel in distress" that must be rescued by her boyfriend. It's more deftly done here, but it would still have been nice if Torchy had played a more active role in the film's resolution.

"Torchy Gets Her Man" is included on DVD with the rest of the films in this classic 1930s series in the Torchy Blane Collection from the Warner Archives.

Time's passage may have left 'Lucky Ghost' behind

Lucky Ghost (aka "Lady Luck") 1942
Starring: Mantan Moreland, E.F. Miller, Maceo Bruce Sheffield, Florence O'Brien, Arthur Ray, Jessie Brooks, Nappie Whiting, and Henry Hastings
Director: William Beaudine (as William X. Crowley)
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Riding an incredible wave of luck in craps games, two vagabonds (Miller and Moreland), have the chance to become set for life when the irritable operator of an illicit club and casino (Sheffield) bets his entire operation against them on a single winner-takes-all die roll. The ghost of the former owner (Hastings) may have other plans, however.

"Lucky Ghost" may be one of those films that's more interesting as a historical artifact than something that modern viewers should seek out for entertainment. It's rife with the common mid-career weaknesses of most William Beaudine-helmed films--like scenes and jokes that could have been impactful or funny but which are padded well-past the point of even being interesting--and a whole lot of race-based humor that will cause the 21st Century Woke Set to suffer strokes before the halfway mark.

That last bit is perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of the film. "Lucky Ghost" is what is termed a 'race picture'--a film made specifically for a black audience during a time when the United States was racially segregated, so there was a market for films to be shown at movie theaters for all-black audiences. Despite this, the all-black line-up of characters in "Lucky Ghost" are almost without fail what today is viewed as racially insensitive and negative stereotypes, far more so than other 'race pictures' I've watched (which, admittedly, aren't very many). Perhaps these caricatures were to the audience back then as stoners or nerds are to viewers of comedies today and were recognized as exaggerations of existing people and not something to get huffy over?

One thing that should still speak just fine to modern audiences, and the best part of the film, is the interplay between stars Mantan Moreland and E.F. Miller. This is one of a handful of films they were teamed in, and they function as a black version of Abbott & Costello, with Miller being the straight man and Moreland providing the antics. I think I've expressed my affection for Moreland in every review of a movie I've seen him in, and it's no different here. All by himself, Moreland brings this film from a Low Four rating to a Low Five... and his presence might have made an even stronger impact if not for some of the scenes where I am certain that Beaudine padded the running time by including all takes on a bit where only one, or two at most, should have been included. Moreland is particularly funny during the gambling scenes, and in a couple of scenes where he is leering at the butts or cleavages of the casino's hostesses and making not-so-subtle innuendos. While the film is labled as having passed the Review Board in the opening credits, one wonders which Hayes Commission censor was sleeping on the job that day!

Another aspect that lifts this film a bit above many other horror-comedies of the period is the nature of ghosts. More often than not, hauntings in these pictures turn out to be hoaxes or misinterpretations of perfectly normal and natural events. No so here; in "Lucky Ghost", the filmmakers go fill-tilt with the phantoms, even treating the audience to what special effects the meager budget could allow. It's a nice change of pace.

An airplane drama that's too earthbound

Robot Pilot (aka "Emergency Landing") (1941)
Starring: Forrest Tucker, Emmett Vogan, Carol Hughes, Evelyn Brent, and William Halligan
Director: William Beaudine
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A test pilot (Tucker) and a weather man/bush-pilot-turned-inventor (Vogan) have developed a prototype for a new kind of autopilot they believe will permit flawless remote-controlling of aircraft, thus allowing for bombing raids against the Nazis and Japanese without endanggering pilots. However, interference from enemy spies and an aircraft manufacturing mogul's ditzy, self-important daugther (Hughes) may well spell doom for their project before it ever gets off the ground.


"Robot Pilot" is an avation/sci-fi film with of heavy doses of coy, cute romancing and goofy comedy. Unfortunately, much of the comedy falls completely flat, partly because of changes in society in the 65 years since the film was made, and party because it just isn't very funny. (There's a "simple-minded Mexican" comic relief character whose scenes drag on and on and on. His stchick is actually somewhat more amusing when Evelyn Brant mimics him in a later scene. If fact, the funniest scenes in the film usually involve Brent, who is definately the most talented actress in the film.)

The simple story moves fast enough for the viewer to not get bored, nor to have time contemplate the implausibility of some of the plot developments. This may be damning with faint praise, but "Robot Pilot" is one of the best films William Beaudine films I've seen. If there had been less ethnic humor and more intrigue and drama, it might have ennded up with a Five or Six rating.


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East Side Kids vs Fifth Column Propagandists

This post is part of my month-long observance of the 65th anniversary of the Nazi Germany's defeat in WW2.

Ghosts on the Loose (1943)
Starring: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Sammy Morrison, Bobby Jordan, Billy Benedict, Bobby Stone, Ava Gardner and Bela Lugosi
Director: William Beaudine
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

When a gang of inner-city kids decide to fix up a house as their gift to a newly wed couple, they run afoul a cell of Nazi propagandists covertly working out of a purportedly haunted house next door. Hi-jinx ensue.

I suppose I might have liked this movie if I was more familiar with the characters. I've seen listings for numerous "East Side Kids" movies, and I understand they are a spin-off from an early feature. Perhaps with a clearer understanding of who these kids are, I'd find them a little less annoying and a little more interesting.

As it is, I only got some mild chuckles out of this picture, mostly because almost every character is dumb beyond words. But it's not a funny kind of dumb like what you get from an Abbott & Costello or Mel Brooks picture, but rather a brain-hurting "I can't believe anyone can be that stupid" sort of dumb. I get the feeling the writers expected the audience to be amused first at the industriousness of the boys, then at their hijinx in the "haunted house", and then at the back and forth as they fight against the Fifth Columnists.

Speaking of the Fifth Columnists, if infiltrators and sabateurs were as stupid as the ones in this film, no espionage or terrorist rings would be able to function. Sure, these dastardly villains had invested a lot of time and money in making their hideout seem haunted, but once discovered they could either have a) stayed safely in their hidden room until the activity died down, or b) carried their printing press and papers out the secret tunnel and to the far end of the back yard where no one would have seen it until a truck could be brought in to take it away. But, if they'd been smart, there wouldn't have been a movie.

These Nazi agents aren't even particularly sinister, even if they are led by Bela Lugosi. In fact, Lugosi is wasted more here than in any other film I've seen him in, except perhaps the 1940s version of "The Black Cat."

Unless you're the world's biggest fan of the East End Kids, this is a movie you can skip. The only other reason to possibly see this movie is for the moment when Bela Lugosi puts William Beaudine's reputation for never doing more than one take a scene to the test. During one of the film's gags, Lugosi utters a four letter word ("shit"), partially masked by a sneeze. Beaudine nonetheless stayed true to his nickname of "One Shot" and Lugosi's obscene language was immortalized for the ages.

'Voodoo Man' is full of stars and weirdness

Voodoo Man (1944)
Starring: Michael Ames, Louise Currie, Wanda McKay, Bela Lugosi, George Zucco, John Carradine, Henry Hall and Ellen Hall
Director: William Beaudine
Rating: Five of Ten Stars (if meant to be a serious movie); Seven of Ten Stars (if meant to be a spoof)

Women are vanishing along a lonely stretch of highway... and the latest victims are a brides maid and a bride-to-be (McKay and Currie). Can a Hollywood screenwriter (Ames) rise to the challenge and face the real-life menace of the Voodoo Man (Lugosi) and minions (which include Zucco and Carradine)?


There are some movies that are so bad they become good. "Voodoo Man" may be one of those. In fact, it's so strange and over-the-top that I'm not sure it was ever intended to be taken seriously; the numerous in-jokes sprinkled throughout the film--starting with the main character being a writer for Banner Productions (the company that produced the film), with a boss named S.K. (Sam Katzman was the chief executive and lead producer at Banner) and the many sly references to other successful zombie movies of the day, such as the Lugosi-starring "White Zombie" from a decade earlier and the 1943 hit "I Walked With a Zombie". Then there's the absolute goofiness of George Zucco's gas station-owning voodoo priest, a character that even within the bizarre reality that exists within every Monogram picture is so outrageous that I can't believe he was supposed to be taken seriously. And then there's the absolutely ineffectual "hero" of the picture, the screenwriter who spends the film's climactic moments unconcious while the sheriff and his dimwitted deputy save the day.

Also, thinking of the film as more of a spoof than a serious attempt at making a horror movie also makes Zucco and John Carradine look a little less pathetic in the picture. By pathetic, I'm not referring to their performances, but to the fact they are playing the characters they do. If the film was intended to be a serious movie, then I feel sad for the state of both their finances that they were reduced to playing a cartoon character in a silly hat (Zucco) and a dimwitted pervert who walked like he had just crapped his pants (Carradine). How desperate must they have been to not walk away from parts like that, even if they had iron-clad, multi-picture contracts with Monogram-related production entities--could Carradine's theater projects REALLY have been that in need of money that he had to stoop this low? If treated as a serious movie, Carradine and Zucco both give performances that mark low points in their careers and that their families should STILL be embarrassed about. However, if they are playing in a comedy, then they're not half bad. (And whether a serious movie or not, Carradine's character undoubtedly found a place among the beatniks a few years later... that cat can beat the drum, man.


Whether a comedy or not, Bela Lugosi is the solid core of the film, an absolute straight man at the heart of the silly weirdness of the rest of the movie. Yeah, he may be a mad scientist who dresses funny for voodoo rituals, but the scene where the mumbo-jumbo briefly pays off by reviving his braindead wife's soul is a genuinely touching and ultimately heartbreaking moment that is worthy of more serious drama. (In fact, Lugosi is the only reason I'm even wavering in my belief that this is a comedy. In films like "Scared to Death" and "You'll Find Out", he is clearly playing in a comedic style, but here he is at his most dramatic and serious.

Also, whether this is a comedy or not, it is quite the star-studded feature and that alone makes it worth checking out for fans of old movies, especially if you have a taste for the quirky. Not only do you have Lugosi, Zucco and Carradine, but you are also treated to performances by the very lovely Wanda McKay and Louise Currie. Both were regular leading ladies and supporting actresses in low-budget thrillers and comedies during the 1930s and 1940s, and with McKay in particular one has to wonder why she never managed to make it to "the big time". She is every bit as attractive and talented as any number of ladies appearing in Universal, RKO and MGM B-movies of the time... and she even has a few A-listers beat.

Moreso than usual, I'd love to hear your take on this film. Is it a comedy or just a complete misfire in the horror department? What do you think?

If you decide to check out "Voodoo Man", I recommend you get the edition released by Mike Nelson's "Riff Trax"/Legend Films edition. It contains the movie and an optional second audio track where the three stars of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" engage in mockery and commentary as funny as anything they did in the old days. After some dissapointing efforts from them as "The Film Crew," they seem to have gotten their groove back. (And if you do get this version, make sure to let the menu screen play a while. There's a great song inspired by "Voodoo Man" that plays. It's almost worth the price of admission by itself.)

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They don't make them like 'A Walking Nightmare' anymore

A Walking Nightmare (aka "Lend Me Your Ear" and "The Living Ghost") (1942)
Starring: James Dunn, Joan Woodbury, Paul McVey, Jan Wiley and Norman Willis
Diretor: William Beaudine
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Detective Nick Traynor (Dunn) comes out of retirement to help find a banker who has vanished without a trace. While investigating the assortment of quirky family members and freeloaders that live in his house, the missing man reappears in a strange, zombie-like state and one of the permanent house guests is murdered. With the mystery deepeing and the murderer lurking in the shadows, Nick joins forces with the old man's live-in secretary (Woodbury) to uncover the truth.

"The Living Ghost" is a fast-paced, lighthearted mystery comedy of the kind they simply can't make anymore. Woody Allen came close with the 2001 movie "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion", but he mostly managed to demonstrate how important the acting styles of the 1930s and 1940s was to this genre of films. Today's actors and directors seem incapable of mounting the patter-running-at-a-mile-minute scenes that, as demonstrated in Allen's movie, are such an important part of what makes the old movies so much fun.

In this case, the scenes between James Dunn (as the wise-cracking detective) and Joan Woodbury (as the give-as-good-as-she-gets secretary) where they fire jokes and insults back and forth at rapid pace are what makes this movie entertaining. The mystery is so-so (although there are some surprises and the way Nick tricks the murderer into revealing himself is more clever than it initially seems), but Dunn and Woodbury are great fun as they bicker and goad each other through the story.

Director William Beaudine' was renowned for his speed, and he has grown infamous for the high percentage of truly bad movies that are among the 350+ films he worked on. While Beaudine did indeed crank lots of crap, "The Living Ghost" stands out as a neat little film that should provide equal enjoyment to fans of old fashioned comedy/mysteries and the "dark old house" genre of films. (The one part that will probably be annoying to everyone is the way Nick Traynor keeps picking on and insulting the butler, who does nothing except be helpful.)

A monkey is made of Lugosi in 'The Ape Man'

The Ape Man (aka "Lock Your Doors") (1943)
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Wallace Ford, Minerva Urecal, Louise Currie, and Henry Hall
Director: William Beaudine
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Dr. Brewster (Lugosi) decides to prove his evolutionary theory of by using a serum to turn himself into a "missing link." He soon regrets his state and goes about developing a cure. Unfortunately, his cure requires lots of fresh spinal fluid, so he takes to prowling the streets with his pet gorilla looking for people to kill.


"The Ape Man" is an embarrassing affair all around. From the guy in the cheap gorilla suit; to Lugosi's "ape man" costume; to the lame reporter trio of comic relief characters; to the tepid climax of the unfocused, messy script, just about everything here should stand as an embarrassment to all those involved in created it. I'm sure everyone could hold their heads high while cashing their paychecks, but I hope they slinked by any theater screening this disaster back in the day. It must have been clear during filming what an awful film this would be; whether viewed as a horror film, or a horror film spoof (and I think they were trying to make the latter) this is a movie that just doesn't work.

In fairness, the actors, by the way, do a passable job, given what they're working with... but even if they'd given Oscar-worthy performances, "The Ape Man" would still be a steaming pile of primate droppings.

Running just under 70 minutes, "The Ape Man" is okay for the first 10-15 of them, but then it takes a sharp nose-dive into The Suck. It remains watchable, but only if you're interested in seeing if it can get any worse (and in seeing an actor in a terribly gorilla suit make a monkey out of himself).

Bela Lugosi at his lowest, together with Martin & Lewis Clones

Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (aka The Boys From Brooklyn) (1952)
Starring: Duke Mitchell, Sammy Petrillo, Bela Lugosi, and Charlito
Director: William Beaudine
Rating: One of Ten Stars


Two small-time comedians (Mitchell and Petrillo, who pretty much copy their act from Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis) become stranded on a tropical island that is home to beautiful white women (including the sexy Charlito) and Dr. Zabor, a mad scientist who lives in a creepy castle (Lugosi). Wacky hi-jinx ensue.


First off, if anyone says they've seen the worst movie ever made, ask if they've seen "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla". If they haven't, tell them they have no concept of what a bad movie really is.

There are two vaguely amusing reasons to watch this movie: First, some humour can be found in the way that Dr. Zabor is the only character in the film who doesn't seem to get that he's actually creepy Bela Lugosi (although it's somewhat saddening to see how bad off Lugosi was health-wise by the time he was in this movie). Second, Petrillo is actually funnier at doing Jerry Lewis schtick than Lewis himself... which is probably why Lewis reportedly sued Petrillo to make him stop. However, neither of these two reasons add up to sufficient grounds for the torture you'll endure sitting through this flick.

As a matter of trivia, I'll mention that Lugosi played in another vehicle that was predominantly made to promote a comedy team, and it also had "Gorilla" in the the title. It was made for the Ritz Brothers, and it was titled "The Gorillia". It's a much better and funnier movie.