Tag: Mae Clarke

King of the Rocket Men (1949) ch03 – Dangerous Evidence

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 opening resolution.

In between, there’s a decent chase scene–cinematographer Ellis W. Carter’s day-for-night photography is good–but when lead Tristram Coffin suits up as Rocket Man later in the episode, it’s somewhat lackluster. Though Coffin bringing his fedora with him is a nice touch.

All in all, it’s still a perfectly okay entry, it just doesn’t have anything going for it. Not the opening cliffhanger resolution, not the gunfight (one side is protected by a conveniently bulletproof chair), not the final fight. Maybe if the cliffhanger had been a little more thrilling….

King of the Rocket Men (1949) ch02 – Plunging Death

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 Jr. get ambushed by a couple thugs; while Peters exchanges blows with one thug, Clarke goes after the escaping one.

The silliest part of the chapter is when escaping thug Don Haggerty has to call his boss, the mysterious Dr. Vulcan, to figure out Clarke is in pursuit.

Some more nice effects for the flying rocket man. The editors are better cutting his effects sequence–he lands on Clarke’s car, which Dr. Vulcan has under remote control–than Dr. Vulcan observing Clarke’s pursuit (then peril) with his (presumably) radio wave based television system. Some of it’s director Brannon’s composition–the monitored action does nothing to amp Clarke’s peril–but the cuts don’t help.

King of the Rocket Men is fast and exciting so far. After the previous cliffhanger’s resolution and some previous chapter plot thread wrap-up, things get moving. Then there’s action, more action, cliffhanger. It’s a fine, fun formula.

And the rocket suit’s neat. It looks clunky, but Coffin takes it real serious before the special effects take over.

King of the Rocket Men (1949) ch01 – Dr. Vulcan – Traitor

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 sequences, showing them from Vulcan’s lab, not the victim’s perspective. It removes most of the tension.

The chapter then goes into some setup. Mae Clarke is a reporter for a science magazine. She’s trying to get to the bottom of the suspicious deaths (no one knows about Dr. Vulcan because all his targets have died). Tristram Coffin is the science organization’s troubleshooter, who thinks there’s something to the Dr. Vulcan business.

There are a bunch of other scientists, any of whom might be Dr. Vulcan. It makes sense since Dr. Vulcan sends some thugs to search Coffin’s office. Coffin finds them and proves some scientists can throw a punch.

The fight scene isn’t bad at all, it’s just really long. Brannon doesn’t do much with composition and the editors don’t do much with the cuts, but the choreography isn’t bad.

Afterwards, Coffin goes and picks up a rocket suit from one of Dr. Vulcan’s presumed victims (James Craven), who actually survived. Only Coffin knows.

Cue another fight scene, this time with Brannon overpowered (and his security guard shockingly useless).

But then Dr. Vulcan goes somewhere unexpected. Coffin suits up in the jet pack and takes off to save the day. The thugs have stolen an experimental rocket.

The flying effects are solid enough–a dummy run on pulleys doubles for the flying Rocket Man–and Vulcan gets some real tension to carry it through the last few minutes.

It’s not off to a superb start, but it’s far better than expected. Coffin’s a durable, somewhat unexpected lead. No one else makes an impression yet.

Penthouse (1933, W.S. Van Dyke)

Penthouse is a lean mystery masquerading as a class melodrama. Most of that class melodrama stuff comes at the front–and is only really ever alluded to later–making the film front-heavy. Unfortunately, so much time goes towards the melodrama, the mystery suffers. Luckily, there’s a whole bunch of charm–from the cast, from the script, from director Van Dyke–and it makes up for the uneasy narrative.

Warner Baxter is a blue blood lawyer who discovers his passion is for helping the unjustly accused professional criminal. The criminal can’t be guilty of the crime he’s charged with. The film opens with Baxter successfully defending Nat Pendleton’s mob boss. Pendleton’s fantastic. He’s part of the film’s comic relief, but he’s also conveys danger.

Penthouse doesn’t seem to have much of a budget–it’s that lean mystery, after all–so there aren’t a lot of big set pieces. Danger and drama usually play out in conversation. It’s a talky lean mystery, so it’s good screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett do so well with the dialogue.

Baxter can make any line engaging. He easily breezes through most of the mystery stuff at the end as he distracts from the film’s lack of a big third act finish, but when his material’s good, he’s outstanding. There’s not a lot of time in the script to establish Baxter. His girl (Martha Sleeper) breaks his heart and the film follows her instead of him–because the melodrama. Baxter’s just getting hammered, much to the chagrin of both Pendleton (in addition to being a client, he’s a pal) and Charles Butterworth (as Baxter’s suffering butler).

Only then the film doesn’t stick with Sleeper, but follows Phillips Holmes as her other suitor, then shifts to Mae Clarke as Holmes’s illicit lover. By the time C. Henry Gordon shows up–as Clarke’s ex and Pendleton’s criminal rival–one might forget there was someone else in the opening titles, second-billed, in fact. Myrna Loy. She doesn’t even show up until the second act, which isn’t ideal because there’s only an hour left.

Loy’s sort of a mob moll, sort of not. It’s unclear; Goodrich and Hackett get a lot of amazing innuendo into the script but barely any details. Penthouse isn’t supposed to make sense, it’s supposed to entertain. When it’s too busy trying to build to entertaining points–Loy and Baxter flirt wonderfully but when it comes time for them to make actual sweet talk, it’s all off. Goodrich and Hackett awkwardly combine their romantic melodrama into mystery deduction scenes. It never gels. Maybe because Baxter treating Loy as disposable doesn’t make any sense.

But they’re still great together in most of their scenes and both of them generate a bunch of goodwill on their own. Loy and Butterworth are wonderful together, for example.

Van Dyke’s got some good direction in the film, usually involving Clarke or Loy. He doesn’t try as much in the other scenes, just keeps it brisk. He does seem to get bored occasionally. There’s one fifteen minute stretch in the second act it feels like nothing but two shots between different characters sitting (or walking to some other place to sit).

Penthouse is an uneven, but still successful outing. Another thirty minutes or so, a little more of a budget, a little better editing from Robert Kern (though maybe Van Dyke didn’t have the time for more coverage), it probably would’ve been better. With Loy, Baxter and Pendleton (and Butterworth)–and Van Dyke’s able direction–it works pretty well.

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Directed by W.S. Van Dyke; screenplay by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, based on a story by Arthur Somers Roche; directors of photography, Lucien N. Andriot and Harold Rosson; edited by Robert Kern; music by William Axt; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Starring Warner Baxter (Jackson Durant), Myrna Loy (Gertie Waxted), Nat Pendleton (Tony Gazotti), C. Henry Gordon (Jim Crelliman), Martha Sleeper (Sue Leonard), Charles Butterworth (Layton), Phillips Holmes (Tom Siddall) and Mae Clarke (Mimi Montagne).


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THIS POST IS PART OF THE CLASSIC SYMBIOTIC COLLABORATIONS BLOGATHON HOSTED BY THERESA OF CINEMAVEN'S ESSAYS FROM THE COUCH.

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Penguin Pool Murder (1932, George Archainbaud)

Penguin Pool Murder, besides the peculiar title (and lack of a definite article), opens like almost any other early thirties mystery. A possible unfaithful wife, Mae Clarke, has a swindling louse of a husband, Guy Usher. When he ends up dead, there are multiple suspects.

Only the murder occurs at the aquarium (hence the title) and, it just so happens, a schoolteacher is giving her class a tour. The schoolteacher in question, played by Edna May Oliver, is half what sets Penguin apart. The other half is James Gleason as the police detective. He soon–first reluctantly, then enthusiastically–enlists Oliver as his partner.

The banter between Oliver and Gleason suggests the pair is an established comedy team but Penguin‘s their first pairing. From the moment the two get together, the film is a delight.

Even before they do, the film’s production values go far to recommend it. There are no exterior shots in the entire picture, but every set is exquisite–particularly the aquarium. Archainbaud has some great set-up shots and his direction is generally strong… though his inserts are bad. Editor Jack Kitchin’s weak cutting undoubtedly contributes, but Archainbaud’s direction is responsible for the jump cuts.

The mystery itself isn’t much of one–the film, which is very short, runs out of interesting suspects fairly quickly. Fourth billed Clarke disappears after the first act, leaving Robert Armstrong (as her attorney) to fill her slot.

He, and Clarence Wilson, are strong supporting assets.

Penguin‘s a lot of fun.

Frankenstein (1931, James Whale)

I’m trying to imagine how Frankenstein looks on the big screen–maybe on one the size of Radio City Music Hall; James Whale fills the screen upward. He directs the viewer’s attention always up, starting with the first scenes in the tower laboratory. The frames are obviously filled with extensive detail, which video certainly does not preserve. This style–tall screen (versus wide screen)–amplifies the watered-down Expressionist sets.

The film’s set design is stunning. Again, to complement Whale’s tall screen shots, the Frankenstein manor has cavernous rooms. The actors frequently occupy corners, making me wonder if theatrical audiences had to search for them in the expansive shots. But when the film’s sets are for the outdoors–the film’s famous graveyard opening for example–Whale uses the frame much differently. The painted backdrop, the endlessly murky sky, is Frankenstein‘s suspension of disbelief on-switch. Opening with it, Whale gets the viewer to accept he or she is no longer on familiar ground. Edward Van Sloan’s opening warning probably contributes as well.

Without a musical score, with incredibly delicate sound design and occasionally jarring cuts, Frankenstein is a strange dream. The first scene with Boris Karloff is the best example of this dream state. The nearly silent introduction to the monster, combined with the perspectively challenged sets, distances the viewer from Colin Clive and Van Sloan. This approach to the narrative–it being distant from the characters and more objective–really plays out in the last scene. As the Monster burns in the windmill, it’s hard not to feel sorry for him, but the film doesn’t encourage any sympathy. The lack of music really makes the narrative perspective indifferent.

That indifference only applies to the story of Clive and Karloff–and to some degree to Clive’s romance with Mae Clarke. The film’s very strange for the first act–with the grave-robbing, followed by Dwight Frye robbing the medical college (the lecture in the medical college is also worth some examination, which I’m not going to make time for here), then the rather frank scene between Clarke and John Boles. The friendship between Boles and Clive’s characters hardly gets any screen time, yet it’s present and important to the film. Frankenstein takes a lot of filmic shortcuts, usually to good effect, and that conflicted friendship is successful.

But it isn’t the most successful… the strangest thing about Frankenstein is the place of Frederick Kerr as Clive’s father. As it plays out, Kerr is the film’s main character. Even with all the conflict stemming from bringing a monster to life, the real focus is Clive and Clarke’s wedding, specifically what Kerr’s great scenes related to it. When Kerr first appears, Frankenstein changes direction–it goes from being uncanny to a bent traditional–and each of his scenes is better than the previous.

His performance isn’t the film’s best–all the principals are great, with Clive somehow turning that field day for overacting into one of Hollywood’s greatest portrayals of insanity. But in Whale’s detachment, Clive becomes even more removed in his recovering sanity. Boles and Clarke occasionally seem like they’re in a melodrama, but both have some great moments. Van Sloan’s great, as is Frye.

Karloff’s performance is singular.

Only in the end–like with most Universal horror films–does Frankenstein begin to show its stitches. The lack of content, of actual story, comes out as everything begins to run together (the Monster’s off screen rampaging, the attack on Clarke) and logic hops out the window. Around the same time, men in 1930s dress appear alongside the guys in lederhosen, which might give logic a shove.

It doesn’t really matter much, because by that time, Frankenstein‘s already established itself. Whale’s technically superior hunt through the mountains and the windmill finale, as narratively problematic as they are, still work great.