'Hi-De-Ho' has virtually no plot to interfere with the musical numbers

Hi-De-Ho (1947)
Starring: Cab Calloway, Jenni Le Gon, Ida James, James Dunmore, and George Wiltshire
Director: Josh Binney
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When struggling musician Cab (Calloway) and his band are on the verge of their first big break, his jealous girlfriend Minnie (Le Gon) gets him embroiled in a fight with a deadly gangster (Wiltshire) because she believes he is having an affair with his female manager (James).

Made primarily for theaters that catered to black audiences in the segregated south, "Hi-De-Ho" is a short movie that is first and foremost a showcase for bandleader and legendary jazz man Cab Calloway. The paper-thin plot is just an excuse to move us from Calloway performance to Calloway performance, and it vanishes almost entirely at the halfway point where it gives way to a supposed club performance by Calloway and several other very talented, real-world acts from the late 1940s. It is so perfunctory that when three people die in a shoot-out, including one innocent bystander, the police's reaction is basically to walk away while saying, "Hey, great job killing those gangsters, Cab! Good riddance to them!"

This film is of interest only to fans jazz, scat-music, and great big band performances. Calloway does show himself to be a better actor than many of his fellow musicians--like when he is performing a mournful acapella version of "Minnie's a Hep Cat Now" (a song he performs earlier in an upbeat fashion).

Surprisingly, Calloway doesn't perform "Minnie the Moocher", the song he is perhaps best known for today--especially considering that song includes the "Hi-De-Ho" phrase from the movie's title and he refers to the Minnie character as a moocher at one point. Of course, the film more than makes up for its absence a song title "I am the Hi-De-Ho Man" and the aforementioned "Minnie's a Hep-Cat Now".

The target audience for this movie--fans of Cab Calloway and 1940s jazz--will love this movie. I would even recommend that wanna-be musicians check it out, especially if you're fancying yourself a hip-hop or rap artist. You will find some things in this movie that may surprise you. Everyone else can't help but be awed by the talent and energy of Calloway... although you will likely find yourself wishing for a little more story to go with the excellent musical numbers.

Exodus: When God Layeth Down the Law

Moses and the Ten Commandments, by Paul Gulacy

Half a century later, there has yet to be made a more impressive Biblical movie than Cecile B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments". It also remains one of the most successful Hollywood remakes of all time, being the second movie version of the Book of Exodus from the Old Testament that De Mille helmed; the first being a 1923 almost-as-grand silent version.

Is there a better way to celebrate Passover/Easter than to watch this great classic movie? (Well, except perhaps reading the original Old Testament story upon which it was based and taking part in various religious observances as your faith might dictate? I suppose either of THOSE might be better ways... but it's a great movie!)

Tarzan meets his match: Crappy Filmmakers

Tarzan and the Green Goddess (1936)
Starring: Herman Brix, Ula Holt, Frank Baker, Lew Sargent, and Ashton Dearholt
Director: Edward Kull
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

Tarzan (Brix) and his friends struggle to be the first to loot a Guatemalan idol from the natives of the Dead City, so the secret of ancient Mayan explosives don't fall into the wrong hands.



"Tarzan and the Green Goddess" is a condensed version of the second half of a serial titled "The New Adventures of Tarzan", and subsequently is a sequel to the condensed version of the serial's first half.

And it shows. Based on references characters make (along the lines of "let's hope the monsters of the Dead City aren't chasing us!") give the impression that a far more exciting adventure led up to the drab and boring events of this one.

This is perhaps the dullest Tarzan tale I've ever seen. Some excitement creeps in during the film's final third--when characters return to the Dead City and once again deal with the goofy cultists who live there--but it's too little, too late. A movie about the "gay gypsy party" that Lord Greystoke hosts to celebrate his return from Central America would probably have been more interesting.

The only positive thing I can find to say about this film is that Brix bears a close resemblance to one of my favorite Tarzan depictions in art--that from the pen of the great Russ Manning. He's also an okay actor, but he manages to ruin the performance by delivering a Tarzan "victory cry" that sounds like he's if he's taking part in a hog calling contest.

I think even the biggest fans of Tarzan can safely take a pass on this sorry effort.

Barack Hussein Obama MMMmmmNNNo!

Obama formally began his reelection campaign on April 4, 2011. Here's what the Future says about the Hope and Change he has brought....

Are You In(sane)?

If you don't get the reference in the title of this post, click on this link to visit Cinema Steve for a look at the creepy, borderline un-American degree to which some worship (or worshipped, one hopes) Barack Hussein Obama.

Picture Perfect Special: Princesses of Mars, Part Six

By Alan Davis

By Leonard Kirk

By Buzz

By Alan Barsani

'Blackout' may put you off the bottle

Blackout (aka "Murder By Proxy") (1954)
Starring: Dane Clark, Elanor Summerfield, Belinda Lee, Andrew Osborn, and Betty Ann Davies
Director: Terence Fisher
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

An American drinking away his sorrows in London (Clark) is offered a large sum of money by a young woman (Lee) if he will marry her. He wakes up the next morning with a pocket full of cash, blood on his coat, and no recollection of happened after his "engagement" in the bar. However, his "wife" is nowhere to by found, and the newspapers are full of the news that her wealthy father was murdered the night before.

"Blackout" may be the best of the film noir-style pictures produced by the venerable British film studio Hammer, first with American B-movie producer Robert Lippert and later with Columbia Pictures. I haven't watched them all, but this one was by far the most interesting of a batch of films that are undeservedly obscure.

Dane Clark excels here as an Everyman who suddenly finds him thrust into a world of deception, intrigue, and murder. The script is expertly paced as the story of his efforts to find out what sort of trouble he is in, so he can find a way out, and the red herrings and plot reversals and surprise twists are all perfectly timed. This is one mystery that will keep you guessing almost up to the very end as to who is behind the killings and why.

The rest of the cast also does a fine job, although Belinda Lee--who plays the girl who marries Clark, either to escape impending forced nuptials or to frame him for murder--was probably hired more for her beauty than her acting talent. She is perfect at playing a distant upper-class snob, but falters when called upon to do anything else. Of course, Lee might just be suffering in comparison to strong and experienced character actors like Clark and Elanor Summerfield--who plays an artist who helps Cook on his quest of discovery, and whose performance and character is so much more lively than Lee's that one hopes that she is the Clark will end up with in the end--as she was just 19 and this was her first major film role.

Then again, good performances from the actors, along with plenty of striking visuals, are to be expected when Terence Fisher is at the helm of a picture. He rarely disappoints, and he doesn't do so with this one, either.

Fans of film noir pictures and well-crafted mysteries will appreciate this film... especially since it comes bundled cheaply with other neglected Hammer Films mysteries.

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'They Saved Hitler's Brain': A bad movie that didn't improve when expanded by 30 mins

They Saved Hitler's Brain (1974 (?))
Starring: Lots of mustaches and a couple of blondes.
Director: David Bradley and someone working for "Paragon Production"
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

"They Saved Hitler's Brain" is a television edit of "The Madmen of Madragor", a film about a clumsy international conspiracy orchestrated by Nazis and Hitler's head-in-a-jar from a diamond-rich South American country. For the bulk of the details about the film, read my review of the original version by clicking here.

When producers looked into selling the film to television in the late 1960s, they discovered it was too short for the two-hour programming time block occupied by movies--which needed to be 92 minutes, with the remaining 28 minutes being occupied by commericals.

So, they shot an additional 30 minutes of film, expanding the original plot of "The Mad Men of Madragor" to inclue a spy-vs-spy angle with intelligence agencies from around the globe (I think) shooting at each other and performing asassinations in order to make sure that only they have the secret of the super nervegas at the center of the story.

The filmmakers charged with expanding the film TRIED to make their new material match the original footage, but I think budget and time conspired against them. Basically, the agents from the new storyline sport 1970s hairstyles and clothing styles, and they clash when they are intercut with the cast with their 1960s crewcuts and fashions. Government agents cruising around in a VW Bug is a particularly amusing aspect of the additions to the film, even if it wasn't intended to be amusing.

A worse slip-up made in the efforts to expand the film is a continuity gaffe of such epic scale that one wonders if whoever scripted that new half-hour bothered to sit through the original movie; a big deal is made out of the fact that only two scientists know the formula for the deadly nerve gas that Nazis are threatening to unleash on the world. However, in other scenes, the gas formula has already been acquired by "foreign powers", but the antidote is still a well-guarded American secret which makes it useless as a weapon (or so the filmmakers believed, in an innocent time before Islamic suicide bombing psychos started making Nazis look like choir boys).

All in all, the 30 minutes of additional material neither adds or subtracts particularly from the film. It doesn't fix any of the problems with the original, and while it offers a bit more action up front than the film contained originally, it creates new continuity flubs.

"Mad Men of Madragor" still has a slight advantage, though, as it's shorter. Unless you REALLY want to torture yourself, go with the original instead of "They Saved Hitler's Brain"; it may have a sexier title--which I remain astonished that they didn't use on the original film--but "Mad Men" is more to the point.

Not So Picture Perfect Wednesday

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. 

Picture Perfect Special: In the dark, all cats are gray...

... especially if one of them is Catwoman!

Here's a selection of illos of Batman and his oldest and most dedicated "frenemy." (Comics Trivia: On at least one of an infinite number of alternate reality Earths, were marrued after she gave up her thieving ways and he hung up the Batsuit. Their daughter grew up to be the suerpheroine, Huntress. That Bat and Cat are portrayed in the last three drawings.)

Click here to read reviews of graphic novels starring Catwoman over at Cinema Steve.

Lon Chaney Jr nails the 'loveable victim' role

Man Made Monster (1941)
Starring: Lon Chaney Jr., Lionel Atwill, Anne Nagel, Frank Albertson, and Samuel S. Hinds
Director: George Waggner
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

After a carnival sideshow worker (Chaney) is the only survivor from a mass electrocution during a traffic accident, the world's leading electro-biologists (Hinds) invites him to become a research subject so the reason for his survival can be discerned. The scientist's evil assistant, however, subjects the unsuspecting man to illicit experiments that turn him into an electrically charged superhuman killer.

"Mad Made Monster" is a far-fetched tale of mad science of supercharging the naturally occuring electrical systems of the human body with high voltage in ways that Baron Frankenstein wouldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams. You'll barely have time to digest the pseudo-scientific whackiness because the film moves so fast.

Further, you'll find yourself buying to just about every aspect of the film thanks to some truly great performances by its cast. Lon Chaney Jr. is almost as good here as he was in anything he ever made, playing a kindhearted, trusting Everyman whose faith in his doctors ends up dooming him. Meanwhile, Lionel Atwill will have you hating him through-and-through as his characters' manipulative, self-centered ways seem all the more evil because he is exploiting and abusing such a nice guy as Chaney's character. The supporting cast are all likewise excellent in their parts, but it is Atwill and Chaney who make this movie and who elevate it to a level that almost equals Universal Studio's spectacular horror films of the early 1930s.

"Mad Made Monster" is of the very best films from the studio's 1940s horror output, and it is well worth a look by anyone who loves classic horror and monster movies.