The Return of Doctor X

 

(1939)
Directed by Vincent Sherman
Written by Lee Katz, based on a story by William J. Makin
Starring Wayne Morris, Dennis Morgan, John Litel, Lya Lys, Humphrey Bogart, Rosemary Lane
IMDB Entry

Humphrey Bogart took a long path to reach stardom.  He started in very small (and bland) parts in films, then acted on Broadway* and would have probably stayed there until he gained notice playing gangster Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest. Warner Brothers bought the film rights and wanted Edward G. Robinson, who was already under contract, for the part. Leslie Howard, the lead and who, importantly, owned the film rights, insisted Bogart play the role.  He was a sensation.

But Warner Brothers didn't know what to do with him, They already had Robinson and James Cagney to play gangsters, so Bogart got a lot of supporting roles. And, in one case, they put him into a horror film:  The Return of Doctor X.

Reporter Walter Garrett (Wayne Morris) gains a plum interview with movie star Angela Merrova (Lya Lys(, but when he arrives, he finds her dead. When the police arrive, though, she is gone and she shows up later, perfectly fine and ready to sue. Garrett is fired and goes to his friend Dr. Mike Rhodes (Dennis Morgan) to try to figure out what happened.  They talk to Dr. Flegg (John Littel), who pooh poohs the idea that Merrova was dead at all, while his assistant Dr. Marshall Quesne (Humphrey Bogart) looks on and acts very suspicious.  Eventually Flegg spills the beans:  Quesne is really the infamous Dr. Maurice Xavier, alias "Doctor X," who was believed dead after his experiments developing an artificial blood failed. Flegg has brought him to life, but he needs a specific rare blood type to stay that way. And Garrett's girlfriend, Joan Vance (Rosemary Lane) just happens to have it.

The movie is not going to scare anyone these days, and probably didn't do it back when it was released. Quesne is too obviously the villain, despite an attempt to try to make Flegg seem that way. Garrett is  a wisecracking reporter of the era with having any gravitas in the role.  Bogart is sinister, but really doesn't show a lot of menace.

The film is a sequel to Doctor X, but that film came out seven years previously and they have little connection other than the title. Also, they were both produced at Warner Brother/First National, a studio not know for any emphasis on horror like Universal was, so it's surprising they decided to film in.

Bogart hated the movie, by the way. He felt at the time that Warner Brothers never gave him roles with any meat in them. 

Of note is a small role for Huntz Hall of the Bowery Boys. Hall had signed with Warners as one of the Dead End Kids and this was one of his few roles of the era outside of the various "tough kid" series that made up his career.

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*Legend has it that, in his early stage days, he was the first to speak the immortal line, "Anyone for tennis?"

Hell's Heroes

 

(1929)
Directed by William Wyler
Written by Tom Reed, C. Garner Sullivan, from a short story by Peter B. Kyne
Starring Charles Bickford, Raymond Hatton, Fred Kohler, Fritzi Ridgeway
IMDB Entry

I  have a set definition about Christmas films: they have to be about Christmas. They can't just have a slight mention of the holiday that doesn't impact the plot.* One list of Christmas films mentioned Hell's Heroes. It is not a Christmas film, but it is a terrific but overlooked movie.

Four men enter the Western town of New Jerusalem, planning to rob the bank. They kill a teller in the robbery, and one of their group is also killed. The other three flee into the desert. The next day, they discover their horses have run off, but they do know of a water hole and head for it. When they get there, the find it has been dynamited and is dry. They also discover a wagon with a pregnant woman (Fritzi Ridgeway) inside. She gives birth, then dies, but names the three men -- Bob Sangster (Charles Bickford), Tom "Barbwire" Gibbons (Raymond Hatton), and Wild Bill Kearney (Fred Kohler) -- as godfathers and charges them to bring them to her husband.

The problem is, the husband was the man they killed in the robbery, and returning to New Jerusalem would have them arrested and probably hanged. 

Bob is all for abandoning the baby, but Tom and Bill agree to take him back to New Jerusalem. Bill is a religious man and has been wounded in the robbery and sits, unable to continue, urging the other to go to the town. Tom eventually goes off to die into the desert to have Bob finish the mission. He uses a desperate stratagem to save the baby, and reaches the town on Christmas, and dies as he brings the infant to the church.

The movie is an adaptation of the story, "Three Godfathers," which was remade as a vehicle for John Wayne in 1948**. The story here is bleaker, coming close to futility, but avoids that by the fact that they succeed in saving the infant.

I do find the technology remarkable. The talkies started only two years before, and recording equipment was big and bulky. Yet the movie was shot entirely on location. Scenes in the desert -- most of the movie -- were shot in the Mohave,  The town of Bodie, California was the location for New Jerusalem.  

Many of the shots stretched the limits of film production. I was particularly impressed by a scene where the three men were walking across the desert, the camera dollying back as they walked toward it. And there was no sign of tracks for the dolly in the sand.

Filming was brutal for the actors. Temperatures reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit and it got so hot in the enclosed camera that the cameraman fainted.

Actor Charles Bickford had come over from Broadway and does a great job portraying Bob Sangster, showing his change from a killer willing to let a baby die to a man who dies to save the baby. This movie came at the beginning of a career that lasted well into the 1960s.

William Wyler was one of Hollywood's most successful directors, helming classics like Dead End, The Letter, Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, Roman Holiday, Ben-Hur, and Funny Girl.

There is a certain amount of symbolism with the three wise men and the baby, but it is only superficial and no more Christmasy than Three Men and a Baby.

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*A local comic book shop talked about the concept of a "red sky crossover," where the characters in one book will say, "Wow.  The sky is red!" because of events in the crossover, and then go ahead as though it doesn't mean anything. This is often the case with movies that mention Christmas in passing, but it doesn't make much difference to the story.

**There were two earlier versions of the story, too.

R.I.P. John Varley

John Varley, author of groundbreaking science fiction, died on December 10.

Varley burst upon the scene in the late 70s with a series of stories that were breathtaking in their imagination. He won Hugo and Nebula awards with the stories “The Persistence of Vision,” “The Pusher” and “Press Enter []” and put forth an amazing body of work, with stories like “In the Hall of the Martian Kings” (a favorite of mine), “Air Raid,” “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank,” and “Options.” Most were set in his “Eight Worlds” future history, where humans were scattered all over the solar system after aliens destroyed Earth.

His novels included Millennium, the Ophiuchi Hotline, and the Gaen Trilogy: Titan, Wizard, and Demon.

He was a major influence in my writing life. Indeed, if it wasn’t for him, I would have a writing life. After finishing Titan, I started writing seriously, cranking out two stories a month to start and continuing to keep writing every day. I had dreamed about being an SF writer, but that book caused me to do something about it.

I have no idea why. But I do know I owe him much.

RIP

Our Man in Havana

 (1959)
Directed by Carol Reed
Written by Graham Greene
Starring Alec Guiness, Noel Coward, Maureen O'Hara, Burl Ives, Jo Morrow, Ernie Kovacs
IMDB Entry

Spies are the subject of countless films. Some are serious, some play it for laughs. Our Man in Havana tries to do both.

Jim Wormold (Alec Guinness) is an expatriate Englishman who sells vacuum cleaners in pre-Castro Cuba. He is approached by Hawthorn (Noel Coward) to spy for the UK.  Wormold is reluctant, but he is not making much money and needs to finance his daughter Milly (Jo Morrow), who is an avid horsewoman and insists on joining an expensive country club to stable the animal there. Wormold consults with his friend Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives) who advises him to take up the offer and to make up a network of spies and concoct secrets. He succeeds too well, sending reports to London about his network along with plans for a new secret weapon (which looks suspiciously like a vacuum cleaner). London decides he needs more staff and sends Beatrice Severn (Maureen O'Hara) to be his secretary. Meanwhile, Captain Segura (Ernie Kovacs) of the Havana police takes a shine to Milly and wants to marry her.

Things get complicated from there. And when someone dies on a mission to find the weapon, it stops being a game.

The movie starts out as a satire of spycraft and bureaucracy, but turns very serious partway through, and returns to its original mood at the end.

People often forget how good Guinness was with comedy. He has a droll, laid-back style -- something like Bill Murray -- and is excellent here. But the real comic star is Noel Coward, who is wonderful as the spy recruiting him, delivering even the most innocuous of lines in a naturally amusing manner. Jo Morrow was the one American actor* in the cast and makes no attempt to sound English; I was amused at a line of dialog that explains her American accent. Maureen O'Hara has little to do and plays the straight woman and love interest.

I do find Ernie Kovacs to be disappointing. Not because he performs badly: Kovacs was a comic genius but this is just a straight role of the corrupt cop. Why they cast him, I don't know, since he was not written to handle his strength. Kovacs form of humor was years before its time, though, and didn't translate well to a narrative film.

The film had scenes shot in Havana. Castro had taken power (though hadn't announced he was a communist), and allowed it because it showed the corruption of the previous Batista regime.

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*Maureen O'Hara was originally Irish. I saw her live on stage many years ago in a performance of Cheaper by the Dozen.