Armchair Commentary

DVDs from the Vault: Forgotten Noir, Jungle Thrills - Plus! Rock, Doris, Popeye, Penrod and Sam (and More!)

Let's begin this week's feast of vintage features on DVD with a newly remastered quintet of lessr-known noir, all culled from the Warner acquisitions library and released via their manufacture on demand imprint, Warner Archives. Monogram's The Fall Guy (1947) benefits greatly from its source material - the short story "Cocaine," by Cornell Woolrich,, whose doom-laden work also served as the inspiration for The Leopard Man (1943), Phantom Lady (1944), Rear Window (1954), The Bride Wore Black (1968) and countless other films. The Fall Guy draws from one of Woolrich's favorite tropes - the crime commited in the wake of an alcohol- or drug-fueled blackout (see also Black Angel and The Guilty, both 1947) - with actor/director Leo Penn (father of Sean, Chris and Michael Penn, and here billed as Clifford Penn) discovering that he may have murdered a woman while in the grip of a bender. The left-field upbeat ending and budget-driven is balanced by the presence of Robert Armstrong (King Kong, 1933) as Penn's cop brother-in-law and Elisha Cook, Jr., in full ferret mode as a highly suspicious stranger. 

DVDs from the Vault: Vintage Hollywood! Classic TV! Multi-Disc Mania! Westerns Aplenty! And More!

Independent distributors Olive Films continue to underscore their status as a dream label for cinephiles and collectors with its current batch of titles, all culled from the vaults of Republic Pictures and available in both DVD and Blu-ray formats. Chief among the current lineup is Mark Robson's Champion (1949), a scabrous, violent profile of a ruthless boxer (Kirk Douglas, who received an Oscar nod for his performance) whose desperate drive to rise above his bottom-floor social standing results in the ruination of his closest relationships (brother Arthur Kennedy, manager Paul Stewart and desire object Marilyn Maxwell) and ultimately, his own self-respect. The darker corners of the soul are also the focus of The Enforcer (1951), with Humphrey Bogart (in his final role for Warner Bros., which distributed the film for United States Pictures) as an assistant district attorney trying to bring down mobster Everett Sloane, who runs a Murder, Inc. style ring of contract killers, and Fred Zinneman's The Men (1950), with Marlon Brando as a former GI struggling with a wartime injury that has left him a paraplegic and Sloane, Jack Webb and Teresa Wright as the doctor, fellow patient and fiancee who aid in his recovery. Both The Men and Champion were early producer credits for director Stanley Kramer and penned by Carl Foreman (High Noon), who received Oscar nominations for both efforts.

DVDs from the Vault: Bowery Boys Volume 2, Jackie Chan, Repo Man, Eddie Cantor and More!

Warner Archives has issued The Bowery Boys: Volume 2, a four-disc collection featuring twelve titles from the impossibly long-running comedy series. The dozen pictures collected in the set roughly cover the first decade of the team's stint under the Bowery Boys' moniker after two previous decades as the Dead End Kids, Little Tough Guys and East Side Kids. The tone of the Bowery movies is decidedly more slapstick than in previous incarnations (thanks in part to the behind-the-camera presence of Three Stooges vet Edward Bernds and Jean Yarbrough, who directed numerous Abbott and Costello features and TV shows), and as the series progressed, swiftly moved into psychotronic territory: in Spook Busters (1946), a mad scientist wants to put the brain of Sach (Huntz Hall) into a gorilla, while a spate of candy consumption in Master Minds (1949) gives Sach psychic abilities, which attracts the attention of another mad scientist (Alan Napier from the TV Batman) with noggin-swapping designs for his monster (Glenn Strange). Bernds' The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1955) goes all-out in its grab for the horror-kid crowd, offering up mad scientist John Dehner a gorilla, robot, vampire and a man-eating tree (maintained by The Waltons' Ellen Corby). The other Boys' adventures included in the set are only moderately less weird - they develop a vitamin drink that makes Hall an unstoppable football champ in Hold That Line (1952), tangle with outlaws in Bowery Buckaroos (1947), faux spiritualists (Hard Boiled Mahoney, 1947) and con artist Amanda Blake in High Society (1955), which was accidentally offered up by the Academy for a Best Story Oscar. The Bowery Boys' titles are definitely an acquired taste, but for former Saturday afternoon matinee habitues of a certain age, their antics are comfort-food-level pleasures, dependably broad and daffy and entirely predictable; the WA set features pressed discs and widescreen presentations on Meet the Monsters and two other titles.

MODs of the Week: A Colossal Collection of Cowboy and Crime Pictures!

This week, there's plenty of action on the dark streets and the high plains in MODs from all three of the major MOD players - Warner Archives, Sony Choice Collection and Fox Cinema Archives. Sony Choice offers two terrific '50s-era thrillers, both previously released as part of their brick-and-mortar Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics series. Five Against the House (1955) is a taunt action-drama with Guy Madison and Brian Keith as Korean war vets attending college on the GI Bill and Kerwin Mathews (The 7th Voyage of Sinbad) as their smart-guy pal who hatches a scheme to rob a casino in Reno, Nevada. Since director Phil Karlson, a specialist in dark, taut B-crime (Kansas City Confidential, The Phenix City Story) is in the driver's seat here, you can expect the heist to go awry, thanks in part to a shellshocked Keith and William Conrad as a nervous casino worker. A pre-stardom Kim Novak also figures in the mix as a nightclub singer who gets mixed up with Madison.

MODs of the Week: Tarzan! The Falcon! Hudsucker on Blu-Ray! And More!

Hot on the heels of Warner Archives' three-disc Philo Vance Murder Case Collection comes another set of vintage screen mysteries, this time devoted to The Falcon, who was originally envisioned as a shadowy freelance crime fighter in stories by the pseudonymous Drexel Drake (or Michael Arlen, depending on which story you follow). In 1941, the character was refashioned for the screen by RKO as a roguish swell in the vein of Leslie Charteris' The Saint, whose own popular series for the studio, starring George Sanders had wrapped that same year. Sanders was quickly snapped up to play the Falcon for three pictures before bowing out of the franchise, which was then assumed by his real-life brother, Tom Conway (Cat People, 1942) who was made the original Falcon's sibling (before taking the whole thing full circle by voicing the Saint on radio in 1951). Conway's Falcon was suitably urbane, if lacking Sanders' charmingly droll self-amusement, and acquitted himself well to nine pictures between 1943 and 1946, six of which are collected in the remastered Falcon Mystery Movie Collection, Volume 2 (the first three Falcon films with Conway, along with Sanders' efforts, are featured in WA's Falcon Mystery Movie Collection, Volume 1). For those who remember whiling away a Saturday afternoon with pics like these on UHF broadcasts (or in theaters), the Falcon films virtually define the term "programmer": fat-free, no-nonsense crime thrillers anchored by a pre-ordained amount of suspense, light comedy (courtesy Edward Brophy and several other actors as the Falcon's rough-hewn sidekick, Goldie Locke), a glitzy location and a dash of sex appeal in the form of Barbara Hale, Rita Corday, Martha Vickers and other second-string starlets. There are flashes of bargain ingenuity along the way - Gordon Douglas and Joseph H. (Gun Crazy) Lewis, who helm The Falcon in Hollywood (1944) and The Falcon in San Francisco (1945), respectively, work their signature brand of under-the-radar sleight of hand, and Elisha Cook Jr. steals the show (again) in The Falcon's Alibi (1946) as a nervous hotel DJ trying to rein in his torch singer wife (Jane Greer). The other three movies in the set - The Falcon Out West (1944), The Falcon in Mexico (1944) and the last film in the series with Conway, The Falcon's Adventure (1946) - offer equally suave-on-a-budget pleasures.

MODs of the Week: Big Stars on the Small Screen, B-Adventure and More

Warner Archives' recent slate of releases features major Hollywood stars working in the made-for-television field with two very different projects from the 1970s. Tony Curtis and Kim Novak made their TV-movie debuts in Peter Medak's The Third Girl from the Left (1973), about a fading Las Vegas chorus dancer (Novak) whose career and romance with a second-string comic (Curtis) have reached a terminal point, which spurs her to take up with a younger man (Michael Brandon). Written by Andre Previn's former spouse and lyricist Dory Previn, the drama, produced by Playboy's motion picture division (which explains the presence of Barbi Benton) occasionally takes on a sudsy tone, but is rescued by its cast of old pros, which includes support by George Furth, Michael Conrad and Larry Bishop. Curtis also gets to sing an original tune written by Previn.

MODs of the Week: Mysteries for Valentine's Day with William Powell, Steve Martin, Harry-O and more

Mysteries for Valentine's Day? Well, the ways of the human heart have always been a bit of a puzzle, whether in regards to romance or malice, and both Warner Archives and Columbia Choice Collection have a slew of crime cases for you and your beloved (or intended) to deduce over a Whitman's sampler or two. The best of the lot is David Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner (1997), a swell Chinese box of a thriller with Campbell Scott (The Amazing Spider-Man) as a naive developer whose priceless but unpatented industrial process makes him the target for an array of nefarious upscale types, including his own boss (Ben Gazzara), a tart-tongued secretary (Mamet's wife, actress Rebecca Pidgeon) and a wealthy stranger (Steve Martin, playing well against type). Though Mamet's dialogue strikes an odd balance between a sort of meta-hardboiled grit and the distinctive language of his stage work, the picture's key appeal is the intricate curves and hard corners of the plot, which enfold and entrap Scott, placing both his invention and life at risk. The cast is also top-notch (though Pidgeon remains an acquired taste), with the great magician/author/actor Ricky Jay, Ed O'Neil and Felicity Huffman all offering quality support.

MODs of the Week: Gildersleeve, Hawks and Grimley, Ltd.

For those that believe that they don't make pictures like they used to, Warner Archives has a slate of vintage titles to underscore that notion. Sweepings (1933) stars Lionel Barrymore as a self-made man who rises from a meager beginning in the wake of the 1871 Chicago fire to the owner of a successful department store. Having reached the end of his life, he turns to his children (Gloria Stuart, Eric Linden, William Gargan and George Meeker) to carry on the family business, only to find that his wealth has turned them callous, petty and entirely uninterested in notions of tradition and commitment. A sort of American take on King Lear, the film, directed by John Cromwell (Of Human Bondage, 1934) and co-written by Lester W. Cohen, who adapted his own (somewhat racy) 1926 novel, walks the line between drama and sudsy family soap opera, but Oscar winner Barrymore anchors the picture with a powerful turn as a man who struggles to balance his commitment to business with his dedication to a family that fails to return the effort in kind. For those who revel in the details, Sweepings is the last film on which David O. Selznick would receive a producer's credit at RKO before his departure for MGM (where he would make Dinner at Eight, also released in '33, among many other titles) and then even greater success as an independent producer with A Star is Born (1937), Gone with the Wind (1939) and Rebecca (1940). Among the bit players who receive no credit for their appearance in the film is Franklin Pangborn, a charter member of Preston Sturges' stock company of character types, as well as Mary Gordon (Mrs. Hudson in the Sherlock Holmes series with Basil Rathbone) as infamous cow owner Mrs. O'Leary, comic Chick Chandler and silent film star Carl Stockdale, who famously defended actress Charlotte Shelby against accusations that she had murdered director William Desmond Taylor. The gentleman playing the Indian sans credit is Olympic hero Jim Thorpe, who by 1933, was reduced to taking walk-ons, among other menial tasks, to support his family after being stripped of his medals in 1909.

MODs of the Week: Pirates, Cowboys, Illustrated Men and Dead End Kids

Warner Archives offers a remastered presentation of actor Robert Taylor's near-to-last screen outings in Return of the Gunfighter (1967), a made-for-TV feature originally broadcast on ABC before receiving a theatrical release overseas. Taylor's weathered visage, worn down from its former matinee idol glory by age and illness (he would die from lung cancer two years after the film's release), does much to sell his portrayal of an aging gunslinger whose attempt to retire in peace is cut short by a search to find a friend's killer (Lyle Bettger as yet another charismatic heel). A young Chad Everett joins Taylor on the trail, while the supporting cast is filled out by familiar players like Michael Pate, Mort Mills and John Crawford and John Davis Chandler as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Warner also has Taylor in the pungently titled Tip on a Dead Jockey (1957), a modest thriller adapted from a short story by Irwin Shaw, with the star as a guilt-ridden former pilot who accepts a job from Martin Gabel (first mistake) to transport smuggled currency (second mistake). Jack Lord is Taylor's down-on-his-luck pal, while Dorothy Malone and Marcel Dalio are his wife and gabby houseguest, respectively.

MODs of the Week: Boris Karloff, B Noir, Alec Guinness, Maggie Smith and More

Warner Archives' Boris Karloff Triple Feature showcases a hat trick of lesser-known features in the iconic actor's prolific c.v., which also underscore his versatility in genres outside of horror, for which he was best known. Karloff dons yellowface to play a Chinese bandit general in West of Shanghai (1937), one of several screen version  of Porter Emerson Browne and Charles Hanson Towne's novel The Bad Man (1920), which Browne also adapted as a play in 1921. Director John Farrow's take moves the action from Mexico to China, where Karloff's "White Tiger" settles a love triangle between oil men Ricardo Cortez and Gordon Oliver and Beverly Roberts' as Cortez's missionary ex-wife. Farrow also directs Karloff in The Invisible Menace (1938) - not to be confused with the Karloff/Lugosi vehicle The Invisible Ray (1936). which, despite its menacing title, is a lightweight courtroom drama (again, based on a play) with Karloff shouldering most of of the dramatic weight as the suspect in a murder on a military base. His talent for sympathetic turns receives a better showcase in