Tag: Noble Johnson

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932, Robert Florey)

Murders in the Rue Morgue buries the ledes a little too often. First, it hides it’s Expressionist until we get to Bela Lugosi’s mad scientist lair and then the production design is absurdly Expressionist. There’s eventually a scene with Noble Johnson (who I thought was in white face, but I guess not based on his billing) blocking this little door to keep the cops out and you’re wondering where you are on the Wonka factory tour. It’s at least interesting set design (Herman Rosse, uncredited) and director Florey is much better at showcasing it than any of his actors.

Florey is real bad with the actors.

Like, Lugosi’s definitely better than lead Leon Ames—Ames is actually the second buried lede—but only because Ames is indescribably bad. Though neither of them can really make the “walking with a fashion cane” thing work. I thought Lugosi was going to pull it off after Ames is so awkward with his cane strut, but Lugosi just lifts and carries his cane too.

Anyway. The second buried lede.

So, although I’m not a fan of Poe’s Dupin, I am familiar with the original story and its place in detective fiction history. Somehow I missed third-billed Ames having the Dupin surname—he’s Pierre not C. Auguste—and the first scene at a carnival is all about Lugosi and his pet ape, not about Ames taking out lady friend Sidney Fox. But then Ames heads to the morgue to investigate dead girls and gives his name… seems like it’s going to be more of a straight adaptation. Except Ames isn’t a porto-Sherlock Holmes deductive reasoner… he’s just some horny French dude.

Maybe the best part of the movie—outside the sets—is D'Arcy Corrigan as the disinterested morgue keeper. He seems to understand the movie he’s in better than anyone else.

Also, the original story does not have a mono-browed (but with two different hair textures) villain named “Dr. Mirakle” (Lugosi) who’s out to prove evolution from apes by interbreeding one with a human. Good to know there’s precedent for terrible naming pre-Star Wars but also not.

Worst part of the movie—outside Ames—is when they try to do comedy to kill time. The movie runs barely an hour and there are multiple comedic time fillers. If you’re familiar with the original story, there are certain memorable plot points, so you’re waiting for those set pieces. Except they just keep doing bad comedy.

Like Bert Roach. He technically maybe be the original story’s unnamed narrator (Watson to Holmes) but doesn’t actually participate in anything interesting, just whines about Ames not studying hard enough for school or eating his lunch. Of course, Ames isn’t solely obsessed with his extracurricular morgue studies—he’s always got more than enough time for Fox—he just doesn’t have time for his girl, his studies, and his obsession with drowned women. And doesn’t care when Roach makes him special lunches to help with his resolve.

It’s all fairly dreadful. Roach is bad. He goes away after this weird Pre-Code horny French boy montage where all the couples are at a picnic and they’re all trying to talk their ladies into impropriety. Though that sequence, which has Florey aping (no pun) some Abel Gance Napoleon shots, is the last time there’s anything like character development. Or ambitious shots. Florey doesn’t ask a lot from Karl Freund’s photography in the rest of the film, other than making sure to keep the crosses lighted well. Because there’s apparently a Christian message to the ape not understanding Lugosi didn’t mean he’d get to mate with the girl, just like, have their blood commingle successfully in a beaker.

Yes. I buried the lede. The lede Murders doesn’t bury—it’s about an actual ape out to rape an actual human girl. Pre-Code style. See, Lugosi translates for the ape—who talks in ape—but by the end it’s fairly obvious the ape hasn’t been understanding Lugosi’s hard professional limits.

You feel bad for the real ape they use as the inserts. It’s mostly a not great, pseudo-orangutan costume, but the close-up inserts are this chimp (maybe) yelling or making faces. It’s not an effective device. And even if it somehow did work better, Milton Carruth’s editing is fairly bad on everything so he’d have screwed up the cuts no matter what.

If Murders were a silent, it might actually work out. Carruth’s cutting would still need some work but Lugosi, Ames, and Fox would no doubt be more effective without hearing them delivery their dialogue and Florey certainly seems to be directing a silent.

Sure, you’d lose an impromptu singing scene with Fox but in that case, “wouldn’t suffer through” is the more accurate phrasing.

Murders in the Rue Morgue is a very long sixty-one minutes. It peaks really early and really low. It’s just a fail and not even a messy one. Start to finish, there’s always one thing or another going very wrong.

The Mummy (1932, Karl Freund)

The Mummy is a strange horror movie. While there’s a definite villain–a monster–in Boris Karloff’s resurrected mummy, he poses a danger specifically to only one cast member–Zita Johann. She’s the reincarnation of his lost love and her exact importance to him isn’t clear until the last act. There’s a somewhat goofy moment where Edward Van Sloan, as Johann’s guardian and the closest thing to Karloff’s nemesis, reveals it all to David Manners (as Johann’s more appropriate suitor). Fortunately Van Sloan experiences the eureka moment just in time but not too early… otherwise the entire last act could have been avoided.

And the last act is the payoff of The Mummy. There are some excellent sequences throughout and Karloff is fantastic, but the last act is where Johann gets to toggle between a reincarnated Egyptian priestess finding herself in the 20th century and her initial character. It’s less than fifteen minutes of the runtime, but it’s awesome stuff. There’s an abrupt ending to the picture, but it has gotten the job done.

Van Sloan is reliable, Manners is likable–he and Johann’s initial flirtation scene is one of the film’s more successful ones between the couple. Arthur Byron is good as another Egyptologist.

John L. Balderston’s script has a lot of fine moments too, especially for Byron, as he comes to terms with meeting a reincarnated mummy.

As for Freund’s direction… it’s always good, but sometimes exceptional. Great editing from Milton Carruth too.

The Mummy is lean and successful. Rather good stuff.

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Karl Freund; screenplay by John L. Balderston, based on a story by Nina Wilcox Putnam and Richard Schayer; director of photography, Charles J. Stumar; edited by Milton Carruth; music by James Dietrich; produced by Carl Laemmle Jr.; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Boris Karloff (Imhotep), Zita Johann (Helen Grosvenor), David Manners (Frank Whemple), Arthur Byron (Sir Joseph Whemple), Edward Van Sloan (Docter Muller), Bramwell Fletcher (Ralph Norton), Noble Johnson (The Nubian), Kathryn Byron (Frau Muller), Leonard Mudie (Professor Pearson) and James Crane (The Pharaoh).

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The Most Dangerous Game (1932, Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel)

Running about an hour, The Most Dangerous Game shouldn’t be boring. But it somehow manages. Worse, the boring stuff comes at the end; directors Schoedsack and Pichel drag out the conclusion with a false ending or two.

The film doesn’t have much to recommend it. That laborious ending wipes short runtime off the board, leaving nothing but good sets, Henry W. Gerrard’s photography and Leslie Banks’s glorious scene-chewing performance as the bad guy. James Ashmore Creelman’s script occasionally has good dialogue, most of it goes to Banks. Unfortunately, Creelman’s script doesn’t have a good story.

Still, the script isn’t Game‘s problem. Simply, Directors Schoedsack and Pichel do a rather bad job. They rely heavily on second person close-ups–the actors are performing for the viewer, showing exaggerated emotion; it’s a terrible choice. Joel McCrea seems silly in the lead and Fay Wray is often just plain bad. She has a couple good moments, early on, but they’re amid some atrocious ones.

The hunt–if you don’t know what kind of animal is “the most dangerous game,” I won’t spoil it (though you should)–starts up over halfway into the film. Here Schoedsack and Pichel present a really boring chase sequence through the magnificent jungle sets. Their action is two dimensional. They also never establish their setting, which would have made the action play better… and give Game more weight.

Robert Armstrong is hilarious, but he isn’t not enough to save the picture.

And Max Steiner’s score is dreadful.

King Kong (1933, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack)

King Kong is a perfect film. I don’t think I’d realized before. It’s always hard to talk about films like Kong, influential standards of American cinema. I want to talk about how its structure still sets the tone for modern films–the gradual lead-in (it’s forty-some minutes before Kong shows up), the non-stop action of the second half, how establishing characters well in the beginning means they can go without dialogue for twenty minutes and still be affecting. Or the special effects. I’d love to talk about the special effects, like how I’d never noticed the absolutely brilliant sound design–the most effective stop motion moments are the ones with the people Kong interacts with. Murray Spivack’s sound brings them fully to life–best evidenced as Kong’s rampaging through the village and attacks a house. It engenders concern for the inhabitants, who must have been six inch dolls.

But Kong isn’t a perfect film for its impact. It’s perfect because of itself. The film opens with the scene on the docks, quickly establishing the peculiar tone of the first half. Everyone sort of takes Robert Armstrong’s gung ho filmmaker with a grain of salt. They’re bemused by him. Armstrong’s perfect for the role, big and amiable, it’s hard to be mad at him when he does something selfish and stupid. Just like the characters, who get themselves into the mess by listening to him and knowing better, so does the audience. Armstrong’s like a big kid for lots of Kong, always coming up with the best action after the consequence.

That first scene also goes far in establishing Bruce Cabot. Cabot’s character is Kong‘s most interesting–as is the way the film handles him. The scene with Cabot ranting to Fay Wray about women not belonging on ships–we’re supposed to understand it’s Cabot who’s off, not Wray. Regardless of whether or not he’s right, the first forty minutes of Kong are about Cabot learning to stop acting like a little boy (which Armstrong never has to do). It makes the romance between Cabot and Wray a wonderful one to watch unfold–that “Yes, sir” following their first kiss elicits a fantastic mood.

These scenes all happen long before Kong shows up, long before the roller coaster starts. I didn’t even get to the coffee shop scene, where Armstrong’s enthusiasm even gets the viewer going–promising everyone, viewer and Wray alike, the wait will be worth it.

And when Kong does show up, it’s clearly worth it. King Kong doesn’t really make the monster a sympathetic character. He tends to chomp on people and his curiosity usually leads to someone dying in a horrific manner, but they do make him into a real character. Utterly insensitive to the chaos he causes, Kong still has these wonderful, inquisitive moments. He’s frequently confused by the little people and it rounds out the film, bringing about emotional concern for him without having to light it in neon. The film reduces Wray’s part to victim at the halfway mark–and she certainly never shows any concern for Kong–which is narratively reasonable. It also puts the onerous on the viewer–if he or she wants to care for Kong, it’s because of his or her response to him, not because the film’s dictating.

Once Kong gets back to New York, the whole thing seems to wrap up in fifteen minutes. There’s the interesting monologue from Armstrong though, regarding what he’s done to Kong. He’s fully aware he’s been culturally insensitive, as well as zoologically, but he doesn’t care. The people don’t care what they’ve done to Kong and Kong doesn’t care what he does for people. It creates an interesting, ego and superego free narrative. Anything the audience wants to bring to it or attribute to it, they’re bringing themselves.

King Kong‘s a lot of things audiences and critics had to come up with new adjectives to describe back in 1933–a romance, an adventure being the two easiest–but it’s simply just a fantastic way to spend a hundred minutes.