The Odd Couple (1968, Gene Saks)

Even when The Odd Couple plods, it never feels stagey, which is impressive since it’s from a stage play (Neil Simon adapted his own play), it mostly takes place in the same location, and many of those sequences are just stars Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon following each other around and bickering. The one thing director Saks can do—the one thing he can reliably do—is not make the movie stagey.

Thank goodness.

While Saks doesn’t bring much to the film, his hands-off direction isn’t really a problem. Couple just doesn’t have a story. It’s got a setup—the film opens with a suicidal Lemmon roaming the streets of New York, trying to work up the courage to kill himself. He then ends up at poker bestie Matthau’s Friday night game, where all the fellows (Matthau, John Fielder, Herb Edelman, David Sheiner, Larry Haines) know Lemmon’s marriage has broken up, and he’s at least told the wife he’s going to kill himself. So it’s a lengthy first act, with lots of laughs (once we’re in the apartment, anyway).

Matthau offers to take Lemmon in, and we’ve got a movie. Matthau is a slob with a broken refrigerator and mold, while Lemmon is a neat freak who loves to cook. They’re perfect for one another. Then, they spend the movie getting on one another’s nerves.

Sort of.

Lemmon gets on Matthau’s nerves, and we hear in exposition about how Matthau gets on Lemmon’s nerves, but it’s not until Lemmon screws up Matthau’s double date night things start getting really bad. The film ostensibly takes place over three weeks, starting with the opening night, except all the days in the second and third acts are consecutive. And they’re not a week. Also there seem to be two Fridays very close to one another (the poker game is every Friday).

Since Lemmon’s the nuisance in the film, even with his top-billing, Matthau’s the star. They share the scenes together well, but Matthau’s the one who wants to meet girls (Monica Evans and Carole Shelley are two British divorcees who just happen to like much older American men), has work subplots, divorced dad subplots. Lemmon just cooks, cleans, and whines. His estranged wife and children don’t appear, though (especially given some details in the second act) they should; he doesn’t go to work (we don’t even find out his job until late second act). Lemmon’s just there to set up jokes and gags. At times, Matthau seems overwhelmed and frustrated to be the only one with anything to do—even when he’s processing his separation, Lemmon’s just got bits, no substance. Simon isn’t doing a character study or juxtaposition of divorced late-sixties men; he’s doing a situation comedy without many situations.

The acting’s all more than solid. Matthau’s got some great moments, Lemmon some good ones (then others where he hits the ceiling on how far Simon’s taking the character development), and the supporting cast is fun. Fiedler, in particular.

Technically, it’s also solid. Robert B. Hauser’s photography is competent without ever being particularly impressive—though Odd Couple’s got a wide Panavision aspect ratio so Saks can fit all the actors in a full shot, which should make it stagey, but, again, never does. Maybe it’s Hauser.

Great theme from Neal Hefti.

The Odd Couple’s funny, charming, and only terribly dated a couple times. It just doesn’t really go anywhere.

This post is part of the Mismatched Couples Blogathon hosted by Barry of Cinematic Catharsis and Gill of Realweegiemidget Reviews.

One-Percent Warrior (2023, Yamaguchi Yudai)

The One-Percent in One-Percent Warrior’s title does not refer to the super-rich, but rather when someone transcends in their film-related martial arts excellence. The majority of the film is just a forty-minute action sequence with star Sakaguchi Tak roaming around an abandoned zinc factory—on its own little CGI island—and kicking various butt. A lot of it is the same butt. It was in the second or third big beat-down I realized all of the bad guys have their faces covered so they can keep getting beaten down.

But forty minutes isn’t a movie, so Warrior’s has a very complicated story tacked on.

The movie opens with documentary interview footage about how Sakaguchi’s such a badass; even though he’s just an action movie star, he can kick his special forces buddies’ asses too. He can dodge bullets. Sakaguchi doesn’t necessarily get a lot to do in the film—even when he’s got the big reveal, which I’ll dance around later—he doesn’t do a lot. But he manages to make the bullet dodging believable.

And he’s socially awkward enough you can believe it when he can’t hold a steady job. His latest gig is on a period piece where he very quickly mouths off too much and gets fired. On this particular job, however, he meets Fukuyama Kohei, who thinks Sakaguchi’s an action god. Fukuyama becomes Sakaguchi’s sidekick and trainee, listening to Sakaguchi talk about his martial arts and his dream of the perfect action film.

So much talking.

Fukuyama convinces Sakaguchi to try to get funding, which leads them to the abandoned zinc factory island. They’ve got to find a location, after all. There, they discover another film crew already scouting the same location. Before that scene even finishes, Warrior adds the next plot wrinkle—they’re both scouting a location where a dead mobster hid his cocaine and now one set of bad guys has brought the dead mobster’s daughter (Fukuda Rumika) to find it.

Except… there’s also another set of mobsters who want the cocaine, so they’re trying to kill those gangsters without hurting Fukuda. They’ve got other gangster’s daughter Harumi Kanon with them. Harumi’s a vicious killer, not naive like Fukuda, so there’s a whole juxtaposition thing.

Fukuyama will end up bonding with Fukuda, but there’s no payoff for it, which stinks because Fukuyama’s really likable in the scenes. It also stinks because it plays into the third act reveal, which part and parcel lifts one of the more famous movie twists from the twentieth century. While Warrior uses the twist just to get to stop the movie—it’s very low budget, and they do a lot with that budget, but there’s a limit, and they do hit it multiple times—but the twist also suggests there’s all sorts of character development they could’ve done but didn’t. Even within the constraints of the established format (the documentary interviews and so on).

It’s a real bummer because Warrior overcomes a turgid first act to actually get moving once the action starts. Sakaguchi can obviously do his job, but Fukuda, Harumi, Fukuyama—they all come through. Even the gangsters are solid. Warrior goes into the finale much stronger than expected, albeit because we’re worried about characters we may or may not need to be worried about, but still. Warrior’s second act rally is significant.

And then it all crashes down.

The Moon (2023, Kim Yong-hwa)

The Moon runs about two hours, but it’s got enough story for eight. About the only way to tell all the story it’s got overflowing would be a miniseries remake. And even then, you could probably toss on another couple of episodes to even it all out.

The film concerns South Korea’s second attempt at a moon landing. Their first attempt blew up five years before this one. Moon takes place in 2029, so the first attempt was 2024. It doesn’t so much take place in the near future as the immediate future and then the very near future. Except, for all the truthiness of Moon, there isn’t any. Korea’s doing a solo moon mission because they want to take all the water out of the moon (we’ve discovered there’s probably water under the surface, and whoever controls the water controls the spice). The United States and all the other English-speaking countries with white people have teamed up to share the moon–no word on anyone else.

The U.S.-led group also has a space station orbiting the moon at all times. It has landers on it so they can go down and do a Tom Hanks-inspired skip and sing whenever they want, but Moon almost immediately establishes no one has walked on the moon since the seventies. This new mission is going to be the first time since then. Actually, wait, it might be possible only Americans have walked on the moon, including since the seventies, which means they don’t let the other astronauts on the lunar space station go walking on the moon because Americans are dicks.

Americans are dicks is another of Moon’s subplots, it turns out. See–and buckle in–disgraced Korean Astronautics and Space Center (NASC) flight director Sol Kyung-gu, who oversaw the previous tragic mission, is back because he designed the control module, and they need him. His ex-wife (Kim Hee-ae) dumped him, moved to the United States, renounced her Korean heritage, married a white dude to raise her son with her, and became the head of NASA. Lots of Moon involves Kim telling Sol to shove it whenever they need help.

Now, there’s the subtext about South Korea wanting to strip-mine the moon and not share with anyone else, especially Kim. It’s bizarre. The geopolitical implications are all very, very strange.

But Moon doesn’t get into any of them. Not when it’s also got one of the astronauts–Do Kyung-soo–vastly unqualified for the mission. It turns out his dad (Lee Sung-min in a not-tiny but always silent cameo) was Sol’s partner on the previous mission, and when it went bad, Lee was the one who killed himself in disgrace. Another big thing about The Moon–basically all of the Korean guys in authority positions imply they frequently consider suicide instead of having to apologize or be uncomfortable. It’s so much.

But also Sol and Do don’t know they’re working together. And they have so many secrets from one another.

Presumably, Do has another secret, which somehow the film felt the need to cut–he’s supposed to be an elite ROK Navy SEAL, except he’s terrible under pressure and spends all his time not under pressure panicking about being under pressure. The other astronauts–who disobey orders and kick ass because they’re astronauts, bro–make fun of him for being such a worry wart.

There’s also Sol’s sidekick, Hong Seung-hee, taking up screen time because they wanted an ingenuine (at one point, she and Do seem like they’re going to have a long-distance connection, but it’s actually nothing, which is weird). Oh, and new KASC political appointee Jo Han-chul is freaking out about everything because he wanted an easy government job without any responsibility.

See, it could easily go eight episodes. I haven’t even gotten into the constant terror everyone finds themselves in once things start going wrong.

Not talking about what goes wrong isn’t necessarily a “no spoilers” decision, either. The Moon’s a science and technology thriller a la Apollo 13 but since it’s based in a poorly thought-out reality (courtesy director Kim’s script) and doesn’t pretend to know any of the engineering whatsoever… it’s just a bunch of words and visuals out of other movies. The special effects are great, no complaints in that department, but they’re just showing various, pre-existing visual tropes.

In all, Moon’s not original (though letting melodrama knock a science thriller off course so much isn’t common), but it’s usually compelling. Do’s not good, but he’s sympathetic. It’d have helped if they revealed he’d faked his way onto the mission, just so the KASC astronauts don’t seem incompetent. Sol’s fine, but there’s not a part there. The rest of the supporting cast is solid–Jo’s a lot of fun, always in the background.

The Moon’s a very tense, simultaneously bloated and thin special effects extravaganza. The only thing missing is the human drama, making it a phenomenal contrast between that genre and melodrama.

Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman (2023, Kim Seong-sik)

Until the third act, when it suddenly becomes clear the film never really had anywhere to go (at least not in this installment), Dr. Cheon is mostly delightful. Even the listless ending isn’t not entertaining, it’s just listless.

After a magic-heavy dream sequence opening, Cheon settles into the gag–Gang Dong-won is a “doctor” who solves hauntings for his YouTube channel. Lee Dong-hwi plays his faithful sidekick, who does all the editing, takes the pay, doesn’t ask too many questions. Not even about Gang’s actual scheme: he’s a trained psychiatrist who knows he can’t cure people’s cultural beliefs in ghosts but can address the symptoms.

Or something. Lee doesn’t care as long as the checks clear.

It will turn out Gang’s actually using the actual mental health help racket to track down the very real, very evil shaman who killed his little brother and grandfather. Huh Joon-ho plays the evil shaman, who can possess people with ease, which makes for numerous good chase sequences and fight scenes. Dr. Cheon’s least realistic element might be Gang’s adeptness as a combination street and sword fighter. While the film hints at his quest to identify Huh (whose existence is something of a theory between Gang and his mentor, Kim Jong-soo), there’s no indication Gang’s been training.

Maybe it just comes with the magic.

The setup involves Gang and Lee taking damsel-in-distress Esom’s case and heading to a remote village. Esom can see dead people all around her and so on, including the evil spirit inhabiting her little sister, Park So-yi. Esom’s ostensibly going to be Lee’s love interest (Gang’s got no time for love), but no one told Esom. And then the movie itself forgets about it towards the end. Dr. Cheon only runs ninety-eight minutes, and they’re clawing for that runtime; there’s lots of delay. Good thing the cast’s so fun.

Well, Gang, Lee, and Kim. And Park to some degree. Since Esom’s in the place of Gang’s love interest but isn’t, she’s missing traditional functions. For a while, it seems like she might have more significance than a plot delivery device.

She does not.

Huh’s a threatening villain, but still cartoonish.

For most of the film, director Kim keeps a fine pace going, balancing the comic and action sequences. The story’s small but big, with the second act dipping into the flashback well a little at a time until the whole story finally comes out. But the geography–Esom and Park’s haunted village and its immediate surroundings (well, drivable immediate surroundings)–is rather finite. And since the movie spends the first half pretending Gang shouldn’t have a plan for this eventuality (one of his “fake” exorcisms leading to the real magic bad guy), it starts feeling cramped.

So instead of focusing on Gang, Dr. Cheon leans heavily on everyone else. Esom’s got damsel stuff, Lee and Kim have sidekick stuff, Huh’s got evil stuff. Gang’s around a lot and gets to charm a lot, but he doesn’t have a character arc. Not even the foreboding revenge arc; Kim warns Gang not to act with vengeance in his heart and whatnot, but it doesn’t even matter. Especially not once the film goes all out with the CGI in the third act. There’s a lot of smart, action-oriented magic on display in the set pieces in the first and second acts, but the third act decides it’s time to unlock the secrets of the universe onscreen.

It’s way too much for such little emotional stakes, derailing the film. And there’s not time to get it back on track. Dr. Cheon goes out with a bang, which is not what it needs.

Hopefully, they’ll figure out something for Gang to do in the next one.

Even if they don’t, get enough of the cast back, and it won’t matter.

Dr. Cheon’s a fun ride, but it’s (too?) determined just to be the beginning.

The Swiss Conspiracy (1975, Jack Arnold)

The Swiss Conspiracy opens with a lengthy title card and voice-over explaining—broadly—the Swiss banking system. Then, the movie’s opening titles, an absurdist, almost silly montage of Swiss postcards, set to composer Klaus Doldinger’s least funky music in the film. Doldinger’s score is always fun and cool (and often quite good), even when it doesn’t precisely match the onscreen action. Swiss is a budget-conscious, European location thriller. There are picturesque car chases, there’s even choreographed fisticuffs (with able stuntmen), but there aren’t pyrotechnics.

After the titles, we get a scene with a guy in a restaurant getting murdered. The film doesn’t spend any time contextualizing it, and when it turns out to be important later (well, qualified important), they still don’t know how to tie it in. The victim is a blackmail victim. There are five more. They’re all customers at Ray Milland’s Swiss bank. Milland and his uneasy vice president Anton Diffring bring in David Janssen to investigate.

Janssen’s a disgraced Justice Department official who had a run-in with the Chicago mob and somehow ended up living it up in Switzerland, consulting when it suits him, otherwise content to zoom around in his Ferrari with his shirt unbuttoned past his navel. Upon arriving at the bank, Janssen gets into a parking space squabble with Senta Berger. She’ll turn out to be not just one of the blackmail victims but also Janssen’s love interest. Berger’s thirty-four. Janssen’s forty-four. He looks early sixties (except, oddly, in their canoodling scenes). So it’s not inappropriate or even weird—other than Berger being interested in brusk, condescending Janssen—but the optics are constantly askew.

Janssen also immediately meets Chicago mobster John Saxon, who’s in town to report his own blackmailing to Diffring. And someone followed Saxon from the airport. Saxon and Janssen know each other—Janssen’s got a great line explaining it’s not a “social” relationship—and there’s immediate conflict. We meet almost the entire supporting cast before Milland gets around to explaining the blackmail scheme to Janssen. It’s an incredibly stagey approach, contrasting how director Arnold shoots it and the film in general. Swiss makes a big deal out of its locations, whether where the mountaintops are alive with the sound of music or the scenic architecture. So when it suddenly slows down to be a corporate office drama… it’s weird.

Because Swiss is a weird movie. Janssen investigates, romances Berger, squabbles with Saxon, meets other blackmail victims John Ireland and Curt Lowens, trades barbs with local cop Inigo Gallo (never seeing the police department is a big tell on the budget’s limits), and runs from hitmen Arthur Brauss and David Hess. Oh, and then occasionally just shoots the shit with Milland. The movie got Ray Milland; they’re going to use Ray Milland.

Then the only running subplot without Janssen is about Diffring and his too-hot-for-him-so-something-must-be-up girlfriend Elke Sommer.

Excellent location shooting, game cast—while Berger easily gives the best performance, no one’s actually bad except Ireland. Saxon’s iffy a lot of the time, but then he’ll have this or that good moment. Ireland doesn’t have any good moments.

Janssen plays his part like he’s in the ensemble, even if Arnold (though more the script) tries to focus in on him. Janssen’s sturdy more than capable, but he’s enthusiastic. Enthusiasm helps.

Right up until the third act, when the film starts deflating all the tires, one lackluster reveal after another. It’s a bummer of a finish, but then there’s a quick, welcome partial save.

For a less than ninety-minute thriller on a budget (in more ways than one), Swiss Conspiracy’s far from bad.

And that Doldinger score is dynamite.

The Childe (2023, Park Hoon-jung)

For the first half or so, The Childe ostensibly has three lead characters. The protagonist is Kang Tae-ju; he’s a half-Korean, half-Filipino illegitimate son of a Korean rich guy. Life has sucked, leading to Kang becoming an underground boxing champ (which has so shockingly little to do with the movie it’s like they forgot it was a thing), which keeps him and Mom going, but then she gets sick. She needs an operation, so he starts trying to track down Dad in Korea.

For a while, Dad doesn’t want to be found, but just as things get worse, Dad sends his lawyer (Heo Joon-seok, who—at forty-two—is the old square in Childe) to whisk Kang to Korea. See, Dad’s sick and wants Kang to be there. For sure, they’ll pay for Mom’s surgery, and everything will be fine.

Except Childe doesn’t start with Kang’s only boxing match; it starts with the runaway star of the film, Kim Seon-ho, taking out a room of bad guys in spectacularly bloody fashion. Kim’s been tracking Kang, adding another ominous layer, and then shows up on the plane to Korea, now directly interacting with Kang. At this point, the film starts giving Kang a lot less to do. Based on this less-is-more approach, I wonder if maybe Kang wasn’t able to keep up with Kim, so they quieted him down instead of having him outdone, charismatically speaking.

Anyway.

Then comes Kim Kang-woo, who’s also overtly charismatic. Kim has the most challenging part in the film because he’s playing a nepo-baby vicious gangster. He’s Kang’s half-brother, and he’s got his reasons for being happy (and not happy) they’re bringing Kang over. Kim’s simultaneously a dipshit, a monster, and comic relief (he berates his staff, basically, because they’re dumb thugs). It’s a rocky part, but Kim hangs on through all the plot twists and frankly bat shit plot developments (whenever Childe gets bored, it brings out the ultra-violence, like writer and director Park is just reminding everyone they might want to leave if they don’t like actual buckets of blood); he’s great.

The film somewhat balances between Kang, Kim Seon-ho, and Kim Kang-woo until Go Ara comes back in. Go’s a Korean tourist whom Kang meets in the Philippines, and they get off on the wrong foot (for a South Korean film, Childe’s subtext is South Koreans are racist, materialistic bastards and should be avoided at all costs). In the second half, the film’s going to sap Kang’s agency entirely. Kim Seon-ho gets most of it, but Go will get a bit too. Then it’ll turn out to be a red herring—Go’s return to the story—and we’ll go back to Kim Seon-ho and Kim Kang-woo pretending Kang matters when really it’s just about them spitting chunks of scenery at each other.

Solid direction from Park, some great photography from Shin Tae-ho, and a nice soundtrack (both Mowg’s score and the song selections).

The Childe needed to figure out something to give Kang to do throughout, especially considering how little his first act turns out to matter, but otherwise, it’s a reasonably nail-biting action picture. Lots of blood, some quickly cut (or heavily implied) gore, but also lots of humor, dark and light. Kim Seon-ho’s spellbinding.

It’s good stuff.

Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961, Roger Corman)

If Creature from the Haunted Sea weren’t atrocious, it’d have to be fantastic. There’s no possible in between for the film, which is high concept, no budget.

The film starts as a political spoof about Cuban generals fleeing the revolution with gold. They enlist the aid of gambling gangster Antony Carbone, who has a yacht. Carbone’s also got a wacky crew—Southern belle girlfriend Betsy Jones-Moreland, her goofy younger brother (Robert Bean), an undercover agent (Robert Towne), and a… guy who does animal noises (Beach Dickerson). Only Dickerson doesn’t make the noises; they’re playback. He just makes gestures.

Again, it’d have to be good if it weren’t terrible.

Towne narrates the film. He’s a manic jackass who’s in love with Jones-Moreland, convinced she’s just down on her luck and not Carbone’s accomplice. Carbone’s going to double-cross the Cubans, of course, with the most excellent plan anyone’s ever concocted—he’s going to pretend there’s a sea monster killing off the Cuban soldiers. Eventually, the General (Edmundo Rivera Álvarez, who keeps it together quite well) will agree to change course to avoid further attacks.

Hence the title of the film.

There’s one night of sea monster attacks before Carbone convinces Álvarez to change course. Haunted Sea runs just over an hour; there’s no time for skepticism, further attacks, nothing. Let’s just move right along.

Right up until they land and—thanks to Carbone contriving a silly reason to dump the gold—hang out while going diving for the gold every couple scenes. In between, Esther Sandoval joins the film as a love interest for Towne—he’s just as disinterested in her as Jones-Moreland’s disinterested in him, wokka wokka—and Dickerson finds his soulmate in Blanquita Romero (a local woman who can also mimic animal noises). Except Bean brought Sandoval into the movie and he’s bummed he’s out a love interest, so Romero introduces him to her daughter—Sonia Noemí González—who doesn’t understand mom has taken up with this weird Americans and is just planning on buttering Bean up to sell him some coconut art.

Once again, if it weren’t terrible, it’d have to be good. Writer Charles B. Griffith has lots and lots of ideas. All of them just happen to flop.

Some of the problem is the acting, and some of it is the directing. And maybe some of it is the audio looping. Lots of Haunted Sea is looped. Carbone’s a little too charmless, even as a lousy heavy. Jones-Moreland might have the best acting in the film outside Puerto Rican actors, who play it straight and find the joke, but there’s no competition. Towne’s almost likably bad. Dickerson gets better once Romero shows up. And Bean… well, Bean’s just around.

There’s some solid day-for-night from cinematographer Jacques R. Marquette and an almost successful chase scene.

Haunted Sea definitely rallies somewhere after the first act, but it still doesn’t add up. Cute last shot, though.

Devil’s Partner (1960, Charles R. Rondeau)

Devil’s Partner opens with an old man in his shack killing a goat to seal a deal with Old Scratch. The man’s arrangement is simple—his soul for two years.

Wait, two years of what? Shh, watch the movie.

We also never get to see any more of Old Scratch than his hand. It’s effective but given how well the movie does with the makeup—Ed Nelson plays the protagonist, the old man’s nephew, and puts on makeup for the old man part, too–it might’ve been nice to see a more full-bodied cameo.

Anyway.

Cut to nephew Nelson appearing in town, showing up late after his uncle sent him a plea for help. Too late, it turns out. Nelson charms the local lunch counter owner (Claire Carleton, who quickly establishes Partner’s supporting cast is going to put in the acting work) before the sheriff hauls him in. Just to go immediately back on the previous statement—sheriff Spencer Carlisle is pretty bad. Partner’s got some caricature performances, but they’re good ones, and much of the acting is caveat-free solid. But Carlisle’s terrible. He tries, but it doesn’t help.

Carlisle will also have some exceptional leans throughout the film when he plays stoic. While they film something terrible, his ability to lean so hard on air is impressive.

Nelson quickly becomes a trusted neighbor. When service station owner Richard Crane finds himself unable to run the station for a while, Nelson steps up and fills in, mainly as a favor to Crane’s fiancée, Jean Allison, the only person in town Nelson’s uncle liked.

However, as someone points out, Nelson’s dirty old man uncle liked Allison because she’s a comely lass.

We don’t get much insight into the uncle’s character—or lack thereof—but it sure seems like he was an ornery old asshole; no one in town, save Allison, seems to miss him. Not even town doctor Edgar Buchanan, Allison’s dad, who had an arrangement with the old uncle for goats’ milk to alleviate the symptoms of TB patients. It’s kind of wild how unpleasant townsfolk get to one another.

At least before Nelson arrived; he has a way of calming everyone around him, including Allison. Crane’s inability to work and his concerns about some medical issues cause him to retract from Allison, with Nelson awkwardly finding himself filling a similar space in her life as he comforts her. Well, it’s more awkward for Allison because Nelson’s motives are never exactly clear. Occasionally, he’ll have situations where he’s got to take a more active hand, like when town-drunk Byron Foulger (who’s not good so much as delightful) betrays Nelson’s trust, which could potentially lead to trouble with the local constabulary.

It all works out in the end, nice and wrapped up, with Nelson, Allison, and Buchanan giving sturdy and better performances throughout. Crane’s fine at the start, but his arc’s noisy and slight, and Crane’s got no volume control. There’s only so much time the script can give him; maybe it’s more at fault (a lot of his drama occurs off-screen, with Allison recounting it to others).

Other than Crane and Carlisle, all the acting’s fine.

Rondeau’s direction is competent, especially given the budget and limitations. He gives the actors time, but never too much time. Edward Cronjager’s black-and-white photography is gorgeous. It’s a shame Rondeau doesn’t give him anything better to shoot because Cronjager’s clearly on it here. The day for night’s not great, obviously, but when Cronjager gets to really light, he really lights.

Devil’s Partner is a surprisingly competent little horror picture. Nelson and Allison are compelling, sometimes in unison, sometimes at odds, and Rondeau runs it lean.

The Magnificent Fraud (1939, Robert Florey)

The Magnificent Fraud tells the unlikely tale of an actor on the run who just happens to be in the right place at the right time for the role of a lifetime. Akim Tamiroff’s stage actor’s enjoying a residency of sorts in San Cristobal’s hottest nightclub, one maybe owned by the president’s troubleshooter, Lloyd Nolan. We get to see Tamiroff do Cyrano, then Napoleon. The latter performance is a particular plot point because it’s where Nolan convinces his co-conspirators, Robert Warwick and Frank Reicher, they should hire Tamiroff to impersonate the president.

See, the president—also Tamiroff—is on his deathbed, only there’s an American lawyer on the way with ten million bucks for the local economy, and the deal would die with him. President Tamiroff’s a benevolent, progressive leader who just happens to employ Chicago fixer Nolan. Tamiroff’s sure Nolan’s secretly got a heart of gold, and he plays good interference against Warwick and Reicher.

No wonder he’s nimble at throwing in with them to ensure the money comes through. President Tamiroff’s actual chosen successor, George Zucco, is too honest.

Complicating matters is the banker, played by Ralph Forbes. Forbes just happens to be engaged to Patricia Morison, who just happens to be Mary Boland’s niece, and Boland just happens to be an old flame of president Tamiroff’s. Surely actor Tamiroff’s not going to be able to get away with an impersonation, not when French policeman Ernest Cossart arrives—after tracking Tamiroff across the globe for seven years—ready to take him back to stand trial for murder in Paris.

It sure would complicate things if Cossart knew both the president and the actor.

And it sure would complicate things if ladies man Nolan set his sights on Morison, only to discover she’s probably the only girl he’d ever be happy with and, even worse, he’s the only guy she’ll ever be happy with.

After a somewhat bumpy first act—establishing Nolan as a lousy fella to regular gal Steffi Dina (a dancer at the club) and some lazy costume choices. San Cristobal’s citizenry seems to wear whatever was left in the Paramount costume department after the Westerns got their pick. All of the credited parts are European or North Americans (ahem, very white North Americans and Europeans), and all but four are playing indigenous peoples. Surely, the film wouldn’t make it more awkward with some brown makeup on people’s bodies.

Well, it sure would, actually. And then there’s the detail of Nolan only cheating on local girl Duna with the white girl tourists. He sure seems like a heel, especially when he sets his sights on Morison. Their romance subplot—played straight but with comedic timing—ends up unexpectedly anchoring Fraud. Tamiroff’s mesmerizing, whether he’s playing it straight, monologuing in character (in character), or doing a bit. He and Boland are delightful together. So there’s never anything to worry about when he’s around.

So scoring with the entirely superfluous romance subplot is a plus for Fraud, as is Cossart’s subplot trying to investigate the palace and the supposedly infirm Tamiroff. See, Boland tagging along was an intentional surprise on her part; entertaining an old romantic friend wasn’t in Nolan’s scheme.

Fraud’s a speedy eighty-ish minutes, with director Florey keeping Gilbert Gabriel and Walter Ferris’s screenplay moving at a good pace. Florey doesn’t take much time with anything (except when he and cinematographer William C. Mellor give Morison some extra attention during a moonlight mooning with Nolan), but he gives time to the entire cast. If Fraud’s got a pacing problem, it’s in Florey letting Tamiroff, Nolan, Boland, and Cossart (in particular) more time than they need to get through their deliveries. And James Smith’s cuts then lag. They probably could’ve cut out four minutes just by snipping the dead air.

But the cast’s charming (or doing great work, in Tamiroff’s case); it evens out.

Magnificent Fraud’s a good time with a show-stopping performance from Tamiroff.

This post is part of the Party Like It’s 1899 Blogathon hosted by Erica of Poppity Talks Classic Film.

The Terror (1963, Roger Corman)

The Terror is not camp, which is bewildering, not just because it’d be better if it were camp, but because, based on its vitals, it seems like it can’t not be camp.

The film stars Jack Nicholson as a Napoleonic officer—he does not attempt an accent, thank goodness—who gets involved with some supernatural goings-on involving a European noble (Boris Karloff), the single servant in his giant castle (Dick Miller), a witch (Dorothy Neumann), her sidekick (Jonathan Haze), and a beautiful ghost girl (Sandra Knight). None of the people who presumably grew up in the same area speak with the same accent; Haze whispers all the time (Neumann thinks he’s unable to speak, but really he just doesn’t want her knowing his business), which is more effort than anyone else puts in. Miller plays the whole thing so delightfully straight-faced it’s like he’s doing Shakespeare. Karloff plays it like he’s doing someone a favor.

Karloff’s pretty game throughout, of course. Despite his top-billing, he’s never the protagonist, never even—it’ll turn out by the end—gets an honest scene. The animated opening titles of Terror give away most of the set pieces, just without any context. Also, with less disintegrating flesh slime. And the bird is white. It’s very detailed—visually—so it doesn’t not look like a dove. So, for most of the credits, there’s the white dove of peace flying around disintegrating zombies and whatnot. It’s strange. And ought to be camp. But still isn’t.

The actual bird is a falcon of some kind (maybe?). Shockingly little details out there, even now. The bird is Neumann’s familiar. Maybe? The only thing the script gets specific about, in terms of supernatural rules, is Neumann’s devil-powered, and the best revenge you can get on someone is having them commit suicide because it’ll damn their immortal soul. Also, there’s some heavenly intervention at points, and the interventionist God is a weird flex, considering the villains are trying to trick their prey into committing suicide, but when things go wrong, they get very active in it.

I guess they figured God wasn’t going to pay close attention.

Speaking of not paying close attention… I just realized the movie left a major subplot door open. The script—Leo Gordon and Jack Hill—does not give a hoot about making sense. Terror infamously took ages to complete; despite filming on set for all of Karloff’s material, there was second unit shooting going on for almost a year to pad it out. The film runs just under eighty minutes. They’ve got enough story for thirty, maybe forty. The rest is misdirection, exposition, and Nicholson roaming the countryside looking for Knight.

Knight’s terrible. Like, other people are not good, but they’re amusing. It’s fun to watch Nicholson muscle his way through the part, and Miller’s incredibly compelling. And Karloff, Neumann, and Haze all have a certain amount of charm. But Knight’s terrible. It’s a bad part—she’s either a falcon woman, a vengeful ghost, a possessed innocent, or a reincarnation. She’s either Karloff or Nicholson’s property, though Neumann points out if Knight is a vengeful ghost, she belongs to Neumann, so back off, boys. Knight and Nicholson were real-life newlyweds during filming, and she’s just a couple years younger than him, but she’s also playing like Karloff is the hottest dude she’s ever seen. Knight’s sexy killer ghost is just hot for old British dude bod.

Again, ought to be camp.

The troubled production leads to wanting photography from John M. Nickolaus Jr. (the day for night is ambitious; unsuccessful, but ambitious), as well as Stuart O'Brien’s cutting adding an uncanny mood. O’Brien doesn’t have coverage, and they just weren’t able to get that Nicholson vs. bird effects sequence down, so Terror often comes off as vaguely existential at times. Existential or camp-ready. Nothing in between.

Well, except the occasional gore. There are a couple very gory sequences.

The Terror is a tedious seventy-nine minutes, with some aggravating logic jumps (Knight acts without purpose for most of the film, like they only remembered to give the killer ghost a mission in the third act). It’s never rewarding (it gets closest, thanks to Miller), but it is a singularly weird experience. And the plot twists are goofy enough they’re usually a surprise.