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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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