Category: 1949
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King of the Rocket Men made it to chapter seven before having a stinker. And Molten Menace isn’t even an exciting stinker, it’s just a plodding one. It’s also frustrating because it requires lead Tristram Coffin to be stupid about something a scene after he was talking about being cautious about the exact same thing.…
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With the opening cliffhanger resolution once again being tepid, it seems like Rocket Men is never going to get out of the bad opening rut. Poor Mae Clarke is simply dismissed from the chapter, not very gracious considering she’s just around to be in danger. There’s some brief setup for Tristram Coffin’s next scheme to…
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Not much happens in Fatal Dive before the action–i.e. fisticuffs–starts. Tristram Coffin gets out of the previous chapter’s cliffhanger, inexplicably abandoning the interrupted fight, and heads off to consult with scientist on the lam James Craven. Meanwhile, House Peters Jr. is hanging around Mae Clarke’s apartment again and they decided it’s got to be Coffin…
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One of King of the Rocket Men’s unintentional strengths is its brevity. The chapters never go on too long. They’re all just right, even when they’ve got lackluster events. Most of High Peril is lackluster. The opening cliffhanger resolution is lackluster, the group interrogation scene is lackluster, the car chase is lackluster. The car chase,…
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It’s another quick chapter, starting with a lackluster resolution to the previous cliffhanger–three chapters in, it appears King of the Rocket Men is going to just reveal something previously unseen in resolutions instead of the characters actually having to get out of anything. Unfortunately, Dangerous Evidence’s cliffhanger isn’t particularly impressive either. Especially not after that…
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The coolest part of Plunging Death is a toss-up. It’s either when lead Tristram Coffin, who doesn’t get to participate in the chapter’s fisticuffs, pulls over to put on his rocket suit and take off to chase the villain or when Mae Clarke starts pursuing the villain in the first place. She and House Peters…
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King of the Rocket Men’s first chapter, Dr. Vulcan – Traitor, opens with the mysterious Dr. Vulcan killing off members of the scientific establishment. The first couple just die in mysterious explosions, but the third has Dr. Vulcan taunting him with his impending doom. So far, not a great villain. Director Brannon rushes through the…
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Champion is a boxing picture. It ends with a big fight, as boxing pictures are wont to do. However, as the fight starts and the film cuts between all the people Kirk Douglas’s Champion has wrong, the film isn’t asking the viewer to root for the protagonist. Douglas is a bad guy. The entire third…
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The Third Man runs just over a hundred minutes and takes place over a few days. It’s never clear just how many; director Reed and writer Graham Greene are both resistant to the idea of making the film too procedural. Greene’s scenes, even when they’re expository, still strive against lucidity. Everyone in the film is…
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Knock on Any Door opens with Humphrey Bogart, then heads into a lengthy flashback detailing the life of young thug John Derek. Bogart’s his attorney, defending him on a murder rap; Bogart’s opening statement leads to the flashback. It’s a lengthy flashback, introducing not just Derek but Bogart and the assorted Skid Row denizens who…
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A more accurate title for Playlands of Michigan is Playlands of Lake Michigan, though an even more accurate one would be Michigan Playlands of Lake Michigan. “Voice of the Globe” James A. FitzPatrick takes the viewer through some of the state’s summer tourism, mostly as it relates to water activities. The uncredited director (or directors)…
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The House of Tomorrow is such a well-made cartoon, the technical aspects more than make up for some of the weak writing. However, that weak writing does make the cartoon an interesting historical artifact. First the technical stuff. Tomorrow is a tour through a house of 2050. The year’s made clear when the kitchenwares get…
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Even though it does have some rather nice direction–a miniature posing as a real English village–Glimpses of Old England does not credit a director. One must assume the producer (and narrator) James A. FitzPatrick did not want to distract attention from himself. While he’s a complete egoist, it’s somewhat valid. Glimpses isn’t so much a…
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The politics of The Woman on Pier 13 are more interesting than the film itself. While it’s rabidly anti-Communist, the film is pro-Union. It sets up the Communist Party (the USA branch—there’s no mention of Soviet ties) as an unimaginably devious and effective organization. There’s no motive for their activities—except to mess with honest, working…
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Sea Salts opens with a framing device, which doesn’t make much sense from a story point of view. Well, wait, maybe the frame is to show the viewer Donald Duck (as a sea captain) is a likable greedy, selfish jerk, not a dangerous one. The protagonist is actually a beetle, one of Donald’s crew from…
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Rabbit Hood features some great voice work from Mel Blanc. Some of the responsibility falls on Jones and writer Michael Maltese, of course, since they put Bugs Bunny in Sherwood Forest with the Sheriff of Nottingham as an antagonist… but Blanc makes the cartoon memorable. Bugs has some great dialogue and Blanc nails it. That…
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Frigid Hare ends on a strange note. It looks like Bugs Bunny and his newfound penguin friend are walking in place in front of the Northern Lights. The shot’s disconcerting since the rest of the cartoon is so strong. Bugs is in Antarctica, having made a wrong turn and wasted a few days of his…
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The Windblown Hare is fairly intolerable. Even if the animation wasn’t lazy–maybe Warner slashed the budget after finding out what McKimson wanted to do–there are still two and a half major problems. First, and most surprisingly, Mel Blanc’s Three Little Pigs voices are terrible. He’s doing them as Cagney toughs and it flops. Next, the…
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Ray Milland’s a college professor with a science-powered baseball who becomes a star pitcher. Paul Douglas is his catcher, Jean Peters is his girlfriend. Great performance from Douglas and some good writing can’t save the dull film. Milland’s disinterested and charmless, Peters is good but not in it enough to matter. DVD, Streaming.Continue reading →
The Stop Button 