Madame X (1966)

Madame X is a 1966 Ross Hunter melodrama so you know it’s going to be very melodramatic indeed and it’s going to be lavish with very high production values.

Rising diplomat Clay Anderson (John Forsythe) has married poor shop girl Holly (Lana Turner). They’re socially mismatched but they’re madly in love and against the odds the marriage seems quite successful and they have a son. Clay’s mother Estelle (Constance Bennett) doesn’t really approve of the marriage but she has little choice other than to accept it.

The trouble starts as Clay’s career blossoms and he has to spend an enormous amount of time away from home. Holly starts to see way too much of charming but notorious playboy Phil Benton (Ricardo Montalban in full-on Latin Lover mode). Then an accident occurs which gives Estelle the chance to get rid of Holly. Holly is presented with a stark choice - she can risk a scandal and possibly worse or she can disappear. So she chooses the option of disappearing from Clay’s life.

Estelle packs Holly off to Switzerland, ensured that he will be generously provided for financially. As you might expect Holly cracks up and is found dying in the snow by the kindly musician Christian Torben (John van Dreleen). He nurses her back to health, or at least to physical health but the emotional scars are another matter. They may never heal.

Christian wants to marry her but of course she can’t and she lives and her life goes steadily downhill. She ends up in Mexico, an alcoholic and (it is at least implied) a whore. She hooks up with grifter Dan Sullivan (Burgess Meredith) and amazingly things get even worse for her. Dan has a plan and she cannot permit him to carry it out. The plan will bring her into contact with a young lawyer (played by Keir Dullea), with mometous consequences.

Lana Turner’s performance is extremely melodramatic, but that’s Lana Turner. If you cast her in a melodrama she knew exactly what was required of her and she delivered the goods in her inimitable and outrageously over-the-top style. She was not by any stretch of the imagination a great actress but here’s she’s doing what she did best and she’s doing it well. As the movie progresses she overacts more and more and the more she overacts the better she gets (which was alway the case with Lana Turner).

The other key cast members all know what is required of them as well. Their performances might not be good by conventional standards but they’re just right for this film.

Director David Lowell Rich does a competent job but this is very much a Ross Hunter film. Ross Hunter was proof that a producer could be an auteur. It has all the Ross Hunter trademarks. It’s in Technicolor and widescreen and it looks lush and expensive. It has the Ross Hunter look, in spades.

This is pure melodrama and it’s very much what used to be described as a woman’s picture. You can criticise it for being sentimental and for being campy and for being overwrought but it’s supposed to be all those things. It’s idle to criticise a movie than in fact achieves everything it sets out to achieve. Of course it is perfectly valid to dislike it because it’s simply not your cup of tea.

Madame X has had several DVD and Blu-Ray releases. The one I have is the double-feature pack (paired with Portrait in Black) from Universal. The anamorphic transfer is very good. The only extra is the trailer.

If you’re contemplating seeing this movie there are three questions you need to ask yourself. Do you enjoy totally excessive melodramas? Do you like the Ross Hunter style? Do you like Lana Turner? If (like me) you answered yes to these questions then I recommend this film although it has to be said that there are better Ross Hunter melodramas out there.

Naked Alibi (1954)

Naked Alibi, an overlooked B-feature produced by Ross Hunter and released by Universal International  in 1954, establishes its noir credentials right from the start.

Al Willis (Gene Barry) is a baker and a very respectable church-going family man who gets himself arrested after a few too many drinks. The cops try to pin a robbery rap on him. He gets sore and takes a swing at Lieutenant Parks and makes a few wild drunken threats so the cops give Al a working over. Then they realise that they have zero evidence so they let him go.

That would be the end of story, except that the following night Lieutenant Parks is gunned down. Based on his wild threats Chief of Detectives Conroy (Sterling Hayden) is convinced that Al Willis is the killer, despite a complete absence of evidence.

Conroy is even more convinced when two more cops are murdered. Of course once again there’s zero evidence against Al but Conroy is clearly not the sort of cop who worries very much about petty details like evidence or suspect’s rights.

What’s interesting is that we really don’t know what’s going on with Conroy in the early part of the film. Is he corrupt? Is he really a thug (apparently he’s been the subject of numerous complaints)? Is he crazy? Is he cracking up? Or is he a dedicated if perhaps slightly over-zealous cop? He’s definitely not a conventional nice guy but at this stage we can’t be sure if he’s going to turn out to be the villain or the hero.

We also don’t know about Al Willis. The cops are certainly trying to railroad him, but while he appears to be a poor innocent schmuck we can’t be absolutely sure of his innocence. So either of the two main male characters could end up as the villain.

Conroy is totally obsessed and although facing the possible ruin of his career he continues remorselessly to pursue Al Willis, following to a small (and very disreputable) town on the Mexican border.

At this point the film changes gears. We find out a lot more about what really drives these two men. More importantly, Gloria Grahame makes her entrance. And it’s quite an entrance. The first we see of her is a view of her bottom on a barstool, wiggling in a remarkable enticing manner. She gets our attention, and she holds it for the rest of the movie.

She plays Mariana, a night club singer who is also Al Willis’s girlfriend. Willis is of course a married man. This is a movie that tries to be as salacious as possible, and by 1954 standards it certainly succeeds. Now we get the three main characters drawn together in a web of suspicion and betrayal. It might not be a dazzlingly original plot but it’s executed with a great deal of skill and style.

Director Jerry Hopper started his career as an editor, always good training for a future director. His pacing is relentless. This is a movie that never stops to draw breath. Hopper’s career as a film director was eclipsed by his later much more successful career in television. Lawrence Roman’s screenplay is very solid with some interesting twists. Within the limitations of a B-movie budget there’s enough noir visual style to satisfy any reasonable person (the cinematographer was the great Russell Metty).

Sterling Hayden and Gene Barry are both excellent. Barry is particularly good. He really pulls out all the stops. As good as they are they’re both overshadowed by Gloria Grahame. She truly sizzles (aided by a very sexy wardrobe) but she was an actress who could ooze sex whilst still delivering a nicely nuanced performance, in this case as a troubled young woman trapped in a situation she doesn’t fully comprehend.

The movie has plenty of moral ambiguity, and plenty of sexual tension. The promotional material promised sex, sin and melodrama and it delivers.

Why is the movie called Naked Alibi? Because it’s a cool title and it has the word naked in it. That’s the sort of movie this is. It’s an unashamedly lurid potboiler of a B-picture and if that’s what you like then this is a very very good example of the type. It’s also surprisingly subtle and complex (helped the superb acting of the three leads) with a bit of an edge to it and it’s immensely enjoyable, so this is a superior B-movie. An absolute must-see for Gloria Grahame fans. Very highly recommended.

Kino Lorber’s DVD offers a very good anamorphic transfer (the movie is in widescreen and black-and-white). There’s an audio commentary by film historian Kat Ellinger. I’ve never heard of her but she knows her noir stuff and she’s enthusiastic and she clearly loves this film.

The Small Voice (1948)

The Small Voice (AKA The Hideout) is a 1948 British crime thriller that is a bit more complex than the usual run of such films.

Playwright Murray Byrne (James Donald) and his wife Eleanor (Valerie Hobson) are quarrelling. Which is what they do most of the time. It’s not that they’re no longer in love. They just can’t seem to live together. Murray lost a leg during the war and he’s never quite recovered his confidence. He feels like half a man, all that sort of thing. And Eleanor has a lot of male admirers. She’s an actress and a glamorous one. Male admirers come with the territory. She has no intention of being unfaithful but she can’t convince Murray of that. And eventually Murray’s self-pity will drive her into the arms of another man. Eleanor wants to get out before that happens. She’s decided to leave him. Things are pretty tense as they drive home from the railway station.

They’re about to get a lot tenser. Murray and Eleanor are about to encounter three desperate armed fugitives who killed a policeman. Now their car has crashed and they need a place to hide out.

Boke (Howard Keel) is the ringleader who masterminded an escape from a military prison, along with Frankie and the slightly simple-minded Jim. The three fugitives hold the Byrnes hostage in the Byrne’s cottage but there’s a complication. In the other car involved in the accident were two small children. Frankie and Jim decided to bring them along to the cottage. They might be desperadoes but they’re not callous enough to leave two terrified children behind, and they’re certainly not cold-blooded enough to kill the children. And one of the kids is sick. Real sick.

Now the battle of wills starts. Murray thinks that being a playwright specialising in plays about crime he can break Boke’s spirit. Boke thinks he can break Murray’s spirit. Eleanor thinks she can uncover some basic humanity in Boke and persuade him to save the sick boy. It all works because of the nicely understated performances, and because of the well-crafted script.

But the hostage drama is only part of what’s going on. There’s also the marriage between Murray and Eleanor, a marriage that is not merely headed for the rocks but has already hit them. Now they’re going to have to depend on each other for a while at least. Eleanor is not sure if she can depend on Murray, and Murray is not sure about that either. But it’s not just their own lives on the line but a child’s as well.

Of course there’s tension between the fugitives as well. A policeman was killed. Someone is going to hang for that, but it was Boke who pulled the trigger so why should the other two swing for it as well? And there’s the race against time element. The boy has meningitis. Without treatment his chances of survival are very slim and if he dies then Boke’s accomplices can be quite certain of keeping an appointment with the hangman.

James Donald’s natural seriousness as an actor stands him in good stead here. Murray is a humourless prickly kind of character. He’s a character we grow to respect, rather than one we like immediately. Valerie Hobson has the right combination of glamour and strength of character to make Eleanor convincing. Howard Keel, in a rare non-singing rôle, brings a brooding intensity to Boke.

There’s some interesting subtle sexual tension between Boke and Eleanor. The relationship between Murray and Eleanor is always believable. They both behave unreasonably at times but no matter how exasperated they are with each other they’re also obviously still in love even if their chances of repairing their marriage seem hopeless.

Network’s Region 2 DVD is full frame (the movie was shot in the (4:3 aspect ratio). As usual there are no extras and as usual the transfer is extremely good.

So we have here a taut suspense thriller laced with emotional drama and both elements work very successfully. Like so many British crime films of this era it’s a very well-made little film. Is it good enough to qualify for neglected gem status? I think it is. Therefore The Small Voice is highly recommended.

Une Parisienne (1957)

Une Parisienne (AKA La Parisienne) is an early Brigitte Bardot movie, released in 1957. I find Bardot’s romantic comedies of this era to be rather charming and this one is no exception. It was directed by Michel Boisrond who also helmed two of her other equally enjoyable 1950s romantic comedies, Naughty Girl and Come Dance With Me.

Bardot plays Brigitte Laurier, the daughter of the President of France. She has decided that she is madly in love with her father’s private secretary, Michel Legrand (Henri Vidal). Michel already has enough to worry about, with assorted mistresses including at least one who has tried to kill him. He is also ambitious and does not want to offend her other by playing footsies with his daughter.

Brigitte is however a very determined girl and she cooks up various schemes to capture Michel, schemes which eventually succeed. Once they are married the trouble really starts. Brigitte is sure that her new husband is still playing around with his mistresses (and certainly his mistresses are still pursuing him). So, at a reception for a European prince,  she announces that she is going to have an affair with the next man who walks through the door. The next man who walks through the door happens to be the prince. Brigitte is undaunted.

Prince Charles is played by Charles Boyer, perhaps a little old at that time to be paired with Bardot (he was 58). But then Brigitte’s pursuit of the prince is supposed to be outrageous. It is fascinating to see Boyer, one of the great French male screen heart-throbs of an earlier era, teamed up with the greatest French female sex symbol of the 50s (and possibly the greatest French female sex symbol of all time).

Bardot was twenty-three at the time, at the height of her beauty and already a seasoned actress. She had a particular gift for light comedy. She made something of a speciality of playing naughty girls. Not evil women, not dangerous women, just girls who are harmlessly and delightfully troublesome. The sort of women who won’t ruin a man’s life but they will make his life an endless series of dramas. But he won’t really mind. That’s the sort of girl she plays in this movie. Brigitte is oblivious to the normal social rules and creates mayhem but in a good-natured sort of way. She is exasperating but always adorable.

As is the case with all of her movies of this period (and most of the movies of her career) this is almost entirely a star vehicle for Bardot. She is the reason you’re going to watch this movie and she is more than capable of carrying such a film on her own. She positively sparkles. She is astonishingly sexy, but in a playful and almost wholesome way. She gives the impression of being a woman who really enjoyed everything about being a woman.

While this is very much Bardot’s movie she gets very good support from Henri Vidal and from Boyer.

This movie gets off to a bit of a slow start but once it builds up a head of steam it becomes a sheer delight. It’s a movie in which adultery is taken for granted and anyone could be sharing anyone else’s bed but it’s a kind of honest adultery. The characters have affairs but they don’t really hide them and (in contrast to real life) no-one actually gets hurt. This is the jet set lifestyle.

And Brigitte only wants to have an affair to make her husband love her. What she really wants is a proper marriage, which she doesn’t think she has.

The witty script gives Bardot and her co-stars something to work with.

This was 1957 so there’s no nudity and Bardot proves she didn’t need to get naked to be sexy.

This movie has been released on DVD but good luck finding it, especially a version with English subtitles. I caught it on cable TV. It’s a great pity because it’s one of Bardot’s best early films.

Une Parisienne is a frothy lightweight romantic sex comedy with Bardot at the top of her game, doing the sort of thing she did supremely well. What’s not to love? Highly recommended.

Candidate for Murder (1962)

Candidate for Murder is a 1962 entry in the incredibly prolific series of Edgar Wallace thrillers made by Merton Park Studios in England.

Donald Edwards (Michael Gough) has a beautiful and glamorous wife but Helene Edwards  (Erika Remberg) is a film star and she’s off to Hollywood to make a movie. And she’s announced that she thinks they should have a trial separation. She also has a friend, a handsome barrister named Robert Vaughan (John Justin). Helene insists that there’s nothing in it although it’s pretty obvious that there’s quite a bit in it.

Donald was always a jealous husband and now he’s become just a little unhinged by all this. In fact he’s hired a hitman to resolve his marital difficulties for him.

Kersten (Hans von Borsody) is the hitman. He’s a German, a veteran of the French Foreign Legion, and he’s your archetypal cold-as-ice professional killer.

Of course things don’t go off quite as expected. In fact they don’t go off as anybody expected.

The basic setup is as old as the hills but this one adds some genuinely neat and original twists (and there are quite a few of those twists). It even has some interesting character stuff.

And there’s some location shooting and even some action.

Playing a character who is a bit unhinged is obviously right up Michael Gough’s alley. He’s trying to stay in control but right from the start it’s clear he’s not playing with a full deck. He wants Kersten to tell him all about killing, how it feels for the killer and how it feels for the victim. Kersten obviously doesn’t feel anything at all and is annoyed by the questioning. He’s happy to do the job but not too comfortable about the thought that he may be working for an unpredictable madman.

Erika Remberg does well as Helene, making her neither too sympathetic nor too unsympathetic. She probably has done her best to be a good wife but Donald Edwards would obviously be a difficult man to be married to.

Director David Villiers is a bit of a mystery man. He apparently died the same year this movie was released, having directed only two features. He handles things here very efficiently.

Writer Lukas Heller had a much more illustrious career, having scripted a varied assortment of odd but interesting movies (The Killing of Sister George, the delightful tongue-in-cheek spy flick Hot Enough for June, The Dirty Dozen and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?). His screenplay for Candidate for Murder is extremely clever.

The black-and-white cinematography is very good and I liked the Edwards house - one of those split-level houses so popular in the early 60s.

The one aspect of the movie that some people seem to find unsatisfactory and implausible (or poorly motivated) actually makes perfect sense if you watch the movie carefully. Perhaps some viewers just weren’t expecting such subtlety, or weren’t expecting to have to think about a cheap B-movie.

This film is part of Network’s Edgar Wallace Mysteries Volume Three DVD boxed set. As usual the anamorphic transfer (all the Merton Park Edgar Wallace films were shot widescreen) is excellent.

Candidate for Murder is for my money one of the better entries in what is on the whole a pretty solid cycle of mystery thrillers. Highly recommended.

Jungle Girl (1941)

Jungle Girl is one of the series of excellent late 1930s/early 1940s Republic serials directed by William Witney and John English. This one was released in 1941 and introduced Nyoka the Jungle Girl who would also feature in a later William Witney-directed serial, Perils of Nyoka.

Jungle Girl is supposedly based on a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Now Burroughs did indeed write a novel called Jungle Girl. And a very good novel it is too - you can read my review here. But there is absolutely no connection whatsoever between this novel and the Jungle Girl serial. Obviously Republic bought the rights to the book since the Edgar Rice Burroughs name would be a definite box-office asset and then proceeded to create their own story. Which doesn't matter. Jungle Girl is a fine novel, and the Jungle Girl serial is terrific as well. They’re just not related in any way.

Nyoka (Frances Gifford) does seem a little bit like a lady Tarzan. She travels through the jungle by swinging through the trees on vines, she rides elephants and she knows the jungle like the back of her hand. But Nyoka is not an orphan raised by apes. She lives in the depths of the West African rainforest in the unexplored region of the Simbula Swamps, in the territory of the Masamba tribe. She lives there with her father, Dr John Meredith. Many years earlier Dr Meredith saved the life of the chief of the Masamba and as a result he was made the tribe’s witch doctor or medicine man and he has spent the intervening years bringing the benefits of modern medicine to the Masamba.

There is a reason that Dr Meredith has chosen to remain deep in the jungle and and has chosen to raise his daughter Nyoka there. He has an evil twin brother named Bradley, a notorious criminal now serving a long prison sentence, and his self-imposed exile is his way of avoiding any contact with his brother, and avoiding the scandals associated with his brother. Nyoka is therefore, like Tarzan, caught between two worlds. She has picked up a western education from her father and she has picked up the lore of the jungle as well.

Everything is fine until Jack Stanton (Tom Neal) arrives in his aeroplane with a passenger, a certain Slick Latimer (Gerald Mohr). Latimer tells Dr Meredith that his brother is dying and that he must go to him immediately. But maybe it isn’t a great idea to trust Slick Latimer. Nyoka has some problems to deal with as well. When Dr Meredith became the tribe’s witch doctor the previous holder of that office, Shamba, was displaced. And he’s been brooding about it ever since. Now he’s ready to do something about it. He’s ready to perform some nasty voodoo rites and to take more direct steps as well, with Nyoka as his target.

The key is the Lion Amulet, which is not only the badge of office of the current medicine man, it also allows across to the Caves of Nakros. That’s where the tribe keeps its treasure. And that treasure consists of an immense hoard of diamonds.

Slick Latimer and Bradley Meredith have their own plans to get hold of the Lion Amulet, with Bradley Meredith posing as his brother.

Frances Gifford is an energetic and appealing heroine. She looks convincing athletic and she’s very attractive. She’s not a great actress but she’s quite adequate. Tom Neal as Jack is an interesting choice for the hero rôle. He’s remembered today for his off-the-wall and disturbingly intense performance in Edgar G. Ulmer’s bizarre but fascinating 1945 film noir Detour. He’s intense here as well, making him intriguingly different to most serial heroes. In fact his acting is pretty decent. So we have a genuinely interesting heroine and a genuine interesting hero.

We also have a pretty cool villain in Slick Latimer, played by Gerald Mohr who positively drips with evilness.

It’s quite amusing that very few of the Masamba tribesmen look even slightly African. In fact I think the actors playing those parts cover just about every ethnicity except African. The Masamba chief is played by a Hawaiian while the evil witch doctor Shamba is played by a Syrian.

There are all the usual hazards for our heroes to face. The only problem with jungle serials is that you pretty much know you’re going to get a guy in a gorilla suit, poison darts, the hero wrassling crocodiles and lions, etc. What matters is that being a Republic serial of this era the fights, the stunts and the cliffhangers are all without exception extremely well executed. There’s an excellent cliffhanger ending that is incredibly similar to an equally excellent cliffhanger in an earlier William Witney-John English serial, the superb Daredevils of the Red Circle. And one cute touch is that in this serial it’s the heroine, not the hero, who wrassles crocodiles and lions barehanded. She gets captured a lot and has to be rescued, but Jack and his sidekick Curly also get captured a lot and Nyoka does her share of rescuing.

There’s also the obligatory cute kid, with an obligatory cute pet (a remarkably intelligent monkey).

With most serials you have to put up with at least one filler chapter made up of flashbacks from earlier chapters but that’s not the case here. There are also no real pacing problems - the action keeps moving along pretty nicely.

The fact that Jack has a plane which plays an important part in the story adds some further interest and there’s an aerial action climax.

VCI’s DVD release is very pleasing. The transfers are very good. The earlier VHS releases of this serial have a very poor reputation (even by VHS standards) for image quality but there’s nothing to complain of here.

Jungle Girl is certainly a superior serial. It’s better acted than most, the jungle setting is utilised well, the cliffhangers are great and it’s generally very enjoyable viewing. Highly recommended.

Vice Raid (1959)

Vice Raid is a 1959 low-budget crime pot-boiler included in Kino Lorber’s three-movie set featuring legendary blonde bombshell Mamie van Doren. The title promises plenty of lurid thrills. We’ll see whether it delivers the goods.

Tough but honest cop Sergeant “Whitey” Brandon (Richard Coogan) has been trying to break up a vice racket run by mobster Vince Malone (Brad Dexter). The reason he’s been having so much trouble (as the audience finds out right at the beginning) is that Malone has so many crooked cops on his payroll.

Malone is getting tired of the pressure from Brandon and he cooks up a plan to deal with the problem.

For the plan to work Malone needs a girl with looks and brains and the Syndicate has just the right girl - Carol Hudson (Mamie van Doren). This is a rôle that gives Miss van Doren a chance to strut her bad girl stuff. Carol is one dangerous broad. She has the body of a goddess and the morals of an alley cat.

Carol’s job is to set Brandon up so he looks like a corrupt cop. The plan succeeds and Brandon is out of a job. But Brandon is not a guy who gives up. Now he’s on a one-man crusade against the vice racket and everyone associated with it, including corrupt cops. He just needs to find a weakness in Malone’s setup. He has one big advantage - this is a personal vendetta and he’s happy to risk his own skin if it’s necessary.

Carol’s problem is her kid sister Louise (played by the delectable Carol Nugent), fresh off the bus from Iowa. Louise is physically all grown up but she’s as naïve as they come. The only thing Carol cares about, apart from money, is little sister. The smart thing would be to put Louise straight back on that bus to Iowa, but persuading Louise to go proves to be a challenge. Louise can’t believe how much money her big sister makes as a model. She naturally doesn’t know that Carol is no model. This is Louise’s first glimpse of the glamour of the big bad city and she likes what she sees.

Brandon starts to make his moves in a dangerous game of bluff with Malone. Malone is a tough customer, tally untroubled by moral scruples. He does have a weakness however. He understands the rackets but he doesn’t understand women.

The plot is fairly routine. You can predict most of what’s going to happen. Which doesn’t really matter. It’s executed with plenty of energy and a fair amount of sleaze (a lot of sleaze by 1959 standards) although the sleaze is mostly implied. This is pretty close to being an out-and-out exploitation movie. Since it was released by United Artists it’s perhaps not a true exploitation movie, but it has some of that grungy feel to it. This is a very cheap movie with just a limited number of very basic sets but it was photographed by Stanley Cortez so it manages to look better than it has any right to look.

Mamie van Doren is in fine form. She’s hardbitten and sexy but as she often did van Doren manages to make her character believable. She wasn’t a great actress but she gives it her all and she dominates the movie.

The anamorphic transfer is excellent. This movie is in black-and-white and it’s the sort of movie that really needs to be in black-and-white in order to capture just the right blend of sleaze and seedy glamour.

Vice Raid belongs to an era in which movies like this tried desperately hard to be salacious but they had to pull their punches. They can’t actually tell us that Malone’s model agencies are fronts for prostitution (or that Carol is a prostitute) but they can make sure we figure it out. And perhaps surprisingly they do tell us outright when one of the female characters is raped (and while we only see the lead-up to the rape the woman’s obvious terror is quite harrowing).

Vice Raid is a routine B-movie potboiler but it has Mamie van Doren and she’s reason enough to see it. Recommended.