Tag: Yakima Canutt

The Amazing Exploits of the Clutching Hand (1936, Albert Herman), Chapter 6: Steps of Doom

Steps of Doom almost opens with a good cliffhanger resolve. It definitely has a couple surprises to it, which the chapter does nothing with after revealing them–even though both beg further explanation–and gets into another bar fight at the waterfront. It raises a third question, just before the fight, which seems important but gets skipped for the fisticuffs. The terribly choreographed fisticuffs. The terribly edited fisticuffs.

After the fisticuffs there’s a red herring car chase, then the good guys split up for a bit. Rex Lease gets a scene to himself–or at least away from Jack Mulhall–where he goes and checks up on lady love Marion Shilling. They have a shocking lack of chemistry together; it’s good they don’t get many scenes together. She asks if they’ve found Ruth Mix, but she’s gotten kidnapped again. Neither Shilling or Lease seem too worried about her.

But wait, she calls just after they talk about her and Mix gives Shilling a mission to save her life. Luckily, Mulhall has Shilling’s house bugged–with cameras–so he knows about her phone call before Lease can tell him about it. The camera bugging serves no apparent purpose other than making Mulhall seem techy. And like a creep.

After Mulhall gets to the house, there’s some more goings on–then a murder–then the cliffhanger. The murder isn’t yet connected to the cliffhanger (or anything else), which is too bad. An actual murder might make Clutching Hand a little more engaging. You can only watch Mulhall get one-upped by the mystery villain so many times.

Some really trying acting from Mulhall this chapter too. Though he’s really making the amateurish performances of the rest of the cast seem stronger.

CREDITS

Directed by Albert Herman; screenplay by Leon D’Usseau and Dallas M. Fitzgerald, based on an adaptation by George M. Merrick and Eddie Granemann and the novel by Arthur B. Reeve; director of photography, James Diamond; edited by Earl Turner; produced by Louis Weiss; released by Stage & Screen Productions.

Starring Jack Mulhall (Craig Kennedy), Rex Lease (Walter Jameson), Mae Busch (Mrs. Gironda), Ruth Mix (Shirley McMillan), William Farnum (Gordon Gaunt), Marion Shilling (Verna Gironda), Bryant Washburn (Denton), Robert Frazer (Dr. Gironda), Gaston Glass (Louis Bouchard), Mahlon Hamilton (Montgomery), Robert Walker (Joe Mitchell), Yakima Canutt (Number Eight), Joseph W. Girard (Lawyer Cromwell), Frank Leigh (Maj. Courtney Wickham), Jon Hall (Frank Hobart), Franklyn Farnum (Nicky), and Knute Erickson (Capt. Hansen).

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The Amazing Exploits of the Clutching Hand (1936, Albert Herman), Chapter 5: The Double Trap

Clutching Hand is definitely wearing me down. I got through the bad fist fights without thinking too much about their poor execution. And lead Jack Mulhall’s annoying “acting” quirks didn’t annoy as much as usual. It’s just Clutching Hand, why would it get any better five chapters in.

The Double Trap of the title refers–I think–to Mulhall falling into a double-layered trap. He’s a master detective and a master of disguise (no eye-patch, unfortunately, but fake beard) but he can’t seem to avoid falling into the Clutching Hand’s traps. Because Mulhall just has to find man of mystery Roy Cardona, who–despite not being billed and having no scenes with the mystery villain (he’s not the mystery villain)–is always around doing stuff. He’s a go-to red herring for the serial.

This chapter has Ruth Mix getting rescued, getting freed, getting kidnapped, getting kidnapped again, disappearing, reappearing, whatever. The cliffhanger resolution at the beginning doesn’t just do a bad job establishing what’s happening with Mix it also resolves the cliffhanger way earlier than the previous chapter used the footage. So, let’s say there’s an explosion involving the heroes last chapter. This chapter gets them far away from the explosion before said explosion occurs. As if spoilers matter.

There’s not much story. Subplot-wise, there’s a little Mae Busch and mentalist fraudsters. Otherwise Trap’s all moving Mix through the chapter from one distress to another so Mulhall’s always just about to save her only to be too late or just fooled.

The finale could be good. All these different bad guys are watching Mulhall fall into the Clutching Hand’s trap. Only Herman is–at best–going for a functional sequence, not mood, and Earl Turner is a boring editor. There’s no rising tension between the cuts from villain to villain. Clutching Hand doesn’t do tension. It’s also a bad cliffhanger setup and Herman and Turner pad it out tediously. But it’s the first time Clutching Hand has had what should be a good sequence and isn’t. Usually the sequences are just bad.

CREDITS

Directed by Albert Herman; screenplay by Leon D’Usseau and Dallas M. Fitzgerald, based on an adaptation by George M. Merrick and Eddie Granemann and the novel by Arthur B. Reeve; director of photography, James Diamond; edited by Earl Turner; produced by Louis Weiss; released by Stage & Screen Productions.

Starring Jack Mulhall (Craig Kennedy), Rex Lease (Walter Jameson), Mae Busch (Mrs. Gironda), Ruth Mix (Shirley McMillan), William Farnum (Gordon Gaunt), Marion Shilling (Verna Gironda), Bryant Washburn (Denton), Robert Frazer (Dr. Gironda), Gaston Glass (Louis Bouchard), Mahlon Hamilton (Montgomery), Robert Walker (Joe Mitchell), Yakima Canutt (Number Eight), Joseph W. Girard (Lawyer Cromwell), Frank Leigh (Maj. Courtney Wickham), Jon Hall (Frank Hobart), Franklyn Farnum (Nicky), and Knute Erickson (Capt. Hansen).

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The Amazing Exploits of the Clutching Hand (1936, Albert Herman), Chapter 4: The Phantom Car

There’s no reason for The Phantom Car to have its title. There are cars in the chapter, yes, but none of them have any supernatural traits. In fact, the one “mysterious” car-related incident–the chapter’s cliffhanger–explains the gimmick to the viewer while never showing the characters’ peril. Phantom indeed.

Car is actually a lot less tedious than the previous Clutching Hand chapters. There’s still a lot of tediousness going on, as well as overly confident writing movies. This whole subplot involving Robert Walker and Jon Hall hanging around the victim’s house, where nothing happens except Walker purposefully loitering–it’s a lot to bother with. Especially when Walker and Hall don’t have lines, just temporary presence.

Perhaps their car is the phantom car.

The chapter opens with an inept but grandiose fight sequence. Super-sleuth lead Jack Mulhall isn’t just a great detective, he knows his fisticuffs and can fight his way through a dozen or so sailors. They didn’t buy his disguise. On the way out–to meet sidekick Rex Lease–Mulhall comes across Roy Cardona, who is still in a questionable wig, and brings him in for questioning. Cardona pretended to be in a wheelchair and Mulhall’s caught him.

Only for the villain to kidnap Cardona. Mulhall’s dealing with a thug and Lease disobeys orders. Lease wants to get in some fisticuffs of his own but gets immediately knocked out of the fight.

So lot of fighting in Car, but almost all in the first half. And the second fight is a rooftop fight. It’s not well choreographed or well directed, but there’s ambiance to the rooftop. The incidental noises give it some character, which Clutching Hand is always sorely lacking. Director Herman is impersonal and unimaginative.

All the fighting is time killer until it’s time for Marion Shilling to tell step-mom Mae Busch (who’s meeting with a mysterious man of her own) about how secretary Ruth Mix has found the gold formula. Maybe. It seems like an excuse to give the female actors scenes, but it’s still a lot more interesting than watching Mulhall and Lease stand around pretending to science. So Busch wants to call Mulhall, only Mix has gotten a mysterious note and run off.

So they have to go after her, which gets Car to the cliffhanger. After a really bad car chase. The villain has got this monitor showing the car chase in progress on a city map. It’s not a successful device for multiple reasons, but… it’s kind of an ambitious special effect for Clutching Hand. They’re almost trying.

It might also just be I’m getting used to the banality of it all.

CREDITS

Directed by Albert Herman; screenplay by Leon D’Usseau and Dallas M. Fitzgerald, based on an adaptation by George M. Merrick and Eddie Granemann and the novel by Arthur B. Reeve; director of photography, James Diamond; edited by Earl Turner; produced by Louis Weiss; released by Stage & Screen Productions.

Starring Jack Mulhall (Craig Kennedy), Rex Lease (Walter Jameson), Mae Busch (Mrs. Gironda), Ruth Mix (Shirley McMillan), William Farnum (Gordon Gaunt), Marion Shilling (Verna Gironda), Bryant Washburn (Denton), Robert Frazer (Dr. Gironda), Gaston Glass (Louis Bouchard), Mahlon Hamilton (Montgomery), Robert Walker (Joe Mitchell), Yakima Canutt (Number Eight), Joseph W. Girard (Lawyer Cromwell), Frank Leigh (Maj. Courtney Wickham), Jon Hall (Frank Hobart), Franklyn Farnum (Nicky), and Knute Erickson (Capt. Hansen).

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The Amazing Exploits of the Clutching Hand (1936, Albert Herman), Chapter 3: House of Mystery

It’s another action-packed episode. The action is atrociously executed, but there is definitely a lot of it. After a perfunctory cliffhanger resolution, the Clutching Hand sends more thugs after detective Jack Mulhall and his sidekick, reporter Rex Lease (Lease’s professional makes no difference to the plot–he’s just a sidekick at this point). They come after them on motorcycles, so The Amazing Exploits of the Clutching Hand has a motorcycle chase. For a little bit, then it turns into a terrible fist fight with bad everything. Bad direction, bad editing, terrible sound. Just awful sound.

After the fight, Mulhall and Lease finally get to the *House of Mystery*, which isn’t very mysterious. It’s a boarding house. Where there’s a man pretending to be in a wheelchair. He’s also presumably pretending not to be in a terrible wig. He’s probably supposed to be in a wig, but I’m guessing it’s not supposed to be a terrible wig.

Or the House of Mystery is where Mae Busch meets with the psychics. At least they seem like psychics. There’s a lot of characters to following in Clutching Hand and none of them are likable and none of the actors are any good. Mulhall’s got some terrible moments in Mystery, for example. And he’s the lead. He’s supposed to be the hero. You’d want the Clutching Hand to win if he weren’t so terrible too.

There’s a fight with the psychics–but with Robert Walker (I think–there really are way too many characters and all the white guys have brown hair and look the same)–same bad sound effects and editing and so on. Maybe the novel is better? Clutching Hand works hard at being mysterious but it’s a who cares level of mysterious. The filmmakers treat their audience as captives, like they’re being forced to sit through the chapter to get to something they actually want to see.

After the second fist fight, there’s this sequence where Mulhall gets into disguise to go back to the House of Mystery. There was something suspicious about the guy in the bad wig in the wheelchair after all.

There’s a secret passage and a gang hideout and all sorts of stuff under the boarding house.

Sadly Mulhall doesn’t wear the eye patch in his disguise. The eye patch would’ve made it at least silly. Instead, it’s just… not good. At anything.

CREDITS

Directed by Albert Herman; screenplay by Leon D’Usseau and Dallas M. Fitzgerald, based on an adaptation by George M. Merrick and Eddie Granemann and the novel by Arthur B. Reeve; director of photography, James Diamond; edited by Earl Turner; produced by Louis Weiss; released by Stage & Screen Productions.

Starring Jack Mulhall (Craig Kennedy), Rex Lease (Walter Jameson), Mae Busch (Mrs. Gironda), Ruth Mix (Shirley McMillan), William Farnum (Gordon Gaunt), Marion Shilling (Verna Gironda), Bryant Washburn (Denton), Robert Frazer (Dr. Gironda), Gaston Glass (Louis Bouchard), Mahlon Hamilton (Montgomery), Robert Walker (Joe Mitchell), Yakima Canutt (Number Eight), Joseph W. Girard (Lawyer Cromwell), Frank Leigh (Maj. Courtney Wickham), Jon Hall (Frank Hobart), Franklyn Farnum (Nicky), and Knute Erickson (Capt. Hansen).

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The Amazing Exploits of the Clutching Hand (1936, Albert Herman), Chapter 2: Shadows

There are some amusing moments in Shadows; not good moments, but amusing ones. Like when reporter turned detective sidekick Rex Lease trespasses on a boat and assaults the crew members. It’s a perplexing action sequence–the second fistfight in the (very long) chapter–and incompetently cut together. It culminates with Lease’s adversary clearly jumping into the water after being punched in the previous shot. There’s very little point in blaming editor Earl Turner for the terrible cutting. He obviously wasn’t working from very good footage.

Also with the boat fistfight is the lack of diegetic sound. There are some quiet punches looped in, but there’s a lot of silence in Shadows. Usually when there shouldn’t be, like after Lease is poisoned with gas and Jack Mulhall works frantically to save him. Once Lease is in the clear–the chapter runs twenty minutes and every time there’s something dramatic, you just wish it would cliffhang and it never does. But once Lease is in the clear, Mulhall just kind of makes fun of him for not taking the poisoning more seriously. There’s no question as to how or why Lease was poisoned.

The chapter starts with an exceptionally boring cliffhanger resolution, only for a deliveryman to team up with Mulhall and Lease for a car chase. The serial takes The Clutching Hand bit seriously, with the hand appearing out of nowhere (or through special secret, hand-sized passages) to wreck havoc. Or take packages. Anyway, there’s a whole subplot with the delivery guy. And Robert Walker and Jon Hall come back for a scene, because apparently they’re important.

If Mulhall had any good will, he burns through it here. He’s really bad opposite other actors, especially if they’re adversarial. He’s an understated blowhard.

As a spoof or a comedy, Clutching Hand might get some traction. Played straight, it’s just nonsense. Like Lease following suspect Bryant Washburn. Why’s he a suspect? Because he’s… present?

And the Clutching Hand makes an appearance–well, in silhouette because he’s the mystery villain–and gives his orders to his lackies over television. Then laughs manically.

For no apparent reason.

Oh, the car chase. I lost track of the nonsensical car chase with the mysterious moving truck guys attacking the heroes. Shadows is twenty minutes of nonsense flung at the audience.

CREDITS

Directed by Albert Herman; screenplay by Leon D’Usseau and Dallas M. Fitzgerald, based on an adaptation by George M. Merrick and Eddie Granemann and the novel by Arthur B. Reeve; director of photography, James Diamond; edited by Earl Turner; produced by Louis Weiss; released by Stage & Screen Productions.

Starring Jack Mulhall (Craig Kennedy), Rex Lease (Walter Jameson), Mae Busch (Mrs. Gironda), Ruth Mix (Shirley McMillan), William Farnum (Gordon Gaunt), Marion Shilling (Verna Gironda), Bryant Washburn (Denton), Robert Frazer (Dr. Gironda), Gaston Glass (Louis Bouchard), Mahlon Hamilton (Montgomery), Robert Walker (Joe Mitchell), Yakima Canutt (Number Eight), Joseph W. Girard (Lawyer Cromwell), Frank Leigh (Maj. Courtney Wickham), Jon Hall (Frank Hobart), Franklyn Farnum (Nicky), and Knute Erickson (Capt. Hansen).

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The Amazing Exploits of the Clutching Hand (1936, Albert Herman), Chapter 1: Who Is the Clutching Hand?

Who Is the Clutching Hand? opens with Robert Walker getting out of prison. The warden warns him not to be a recidivist; Walker tells him he’s going to keep being a crook, he’s just not going to get caught.

Is Walker the Clutching Hand? Who knows.

The action then moves to a boring board room meeting with CEO Mahlon Hamilton yelling at his staff. Is he the Clutching Hand? Who knows.

There are a lot of characters momentarily introduced in this first chapter of The Amazing Exploits of the Clutching Hand but no one gets much emphasis. Walker eventually gets into a bar fight where Jon Hall, as his criminal buddy, gets introduced. The bar fight has the same cheap factor the rest of the serial has going against it, but at least it’s energetic. By the end of the chapter, there’s barely any energy.

After Walker and Hamilton get introduced, it’s Robert Frazer’s turn. He’s a scientist (who works for Hamilton) and he’s just discovered a way to turn any material into gold. He has a lab at home (or near it, it’s somewhat unclear) so he can get visitors like Rex Lease, the reporter who’s romancing Frazer’s daughter, Marion Shilling.

Hamilton and Shilling don’t get introduced until the action has jumped ahead to the evening, when Frazer is giving secretary Ruth Mix dictation of the formula for gold-making. Not the whole thing, but some of it.

Then, after she leaves the room, someone attacks him. But they’ve turned out the lights so we can’t see who. Lease tries to intercede but gets knocked down some stairs–he just catches a glimpse of Frazer on the floor, apparently dead. They call the cops real fast and discover the body gone–it takes the cops to get back into the room–so Lease calls his pal, deductive detective Jack Mulhall in to investigate.

They find a note to Mulhall threatening him to stay away, signed “The Clutching Hand.” Turns out The Clutching Hand is some kind of master villain who Mulhall has tangled with in the past.

If this first chapter is any indication, Amazing Exploits doesn’t have much going for it–probably very few amazing exploits. Technically it’s… low mediocre. Nearly adequate? It’s cheap. Frazer’s big house–oh, right, turns out Walker has it in for the doctor–anyway, he’s got a big house and there’s a lot of action around it. However some exterior shots of the house are clearly poorly altered interiors (like the front door). Then there are exterior shots, which cinematographer James Diamond can’t really shoot, and Earl Turner jaggedly cuts together with the interior shooting to poor effect.

And the car chase, though not plotted poorly, isn’t well-executed.

Plus no one seems very smart (especially the cops). Mulhall’s supposed to be a genius, but he falls into a trap at the end of the first chapter so the big brain on Mulhall is in question. Also, Leon D’Usseau and Dallas M. Fitzgerald​’s script just writes him as a Sherlock Holmes knockoff and not one to take seriously. Occasionally the script does have a gem of a line, however, and it’s a shock.

The cast’s not in it enough to make much impression (Shilling and step-mom Mae Busch are currently set dressing), the direction is no great shakes, the mystery isn’t mysterious. So far Amazing Exploits is anything but.

CREDITS

Directed by Albert Herman; screenplay by Leon D’Usseau and Dallas M. Fitzgerald, based on an adaptation by George M. Merrick and Eddie Granemann and the novel by Arthur B. Reeve; director of photography, James Diamond; edited by Earl Turner; produced by Louis Weiss; released by Stage & Screen Productions.

Starring Jack Mulhall (Craig Kennedy), Rex Lease (Walter Jameson), Mae Busch (Mrs. Gironda), Ruth Mix (Shirley McMillan), William Farnum (Gordon Gaunt), Marion Shilling (Verna Gironda), Bryant Washburn (Denton), Robert Frazer (Dr. Gironda), Gaston Glass (Louis Bouchard), Mahlon Hamilton (Montgomery), Robert Walker (Joe Mitchell), Yakima Canutt (Number Eight), Joseph W. Girard (Lawyer Cromwell), Frank Leigh (Maj. Courtney Wickham), Jon Hall (Frank Hobart), Franklyn Farnum (Nicky), and Knute Erickson (Capt. Hansen).

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