“There ain't nobody in Central Africa but yours truly knows how to get up a head of steam on the African Queen…”

Before The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, In a Lonely Place and so many more Humphrey Bogart films got tucked under my cinematic belt there was The African Queen (1951)—a movie I was positively mad about as a kid (it may very well have been my first “adult” movie after a steady diet of Walt Disney flicks) and because I volunteered to pay it tribute on its 60th anniversary today at Edward Copeland on Film…and More, I was delighted to see that it still holds up as a true-blue classic after convincing the ‘rents to watch it with me two Saturdays back.  (Mom didn’t take much cajoling, since it's one of her favorite movies and in fact, she introduced me to Queen…but Dad was a little upset because while it was on he was missing vital reality show programming in the form of shirtless guys being dealt with severely by law enforcement on Cops.)   I state in the essay that it would be an ideal film to induct classic film-adverse audiences to the wonders of our cinematic past; it’s an astonishing blend of adventure, romance and comedy plus it was filmed in Technicolor…keep in mind, too, that Queen was produced outside the “studio system,” making it one of the first important “independent” films both in terms of money (it cleaned up at the box office) and prestige (it’s become a regular on those AFI lists trotted out every few years or so).

The African Queen had been absent from DVD before March 2010 save for a few Region 2 releases; I purchased one back in 2007 from Amazon.co.uk and then later acquired the Region 1 disc…and the difference is literally night and day.  The Region 1 release’s restoration is positively breathtaking (allowing you to drink in Jack Cardiff’s lush cinematography) and it also includes a nice little documentary entitled Embracing Chaos: Making The African Queen that is chock full of interesting anecdotes and information.  But the important thing is that Queen is finally accessible to a new generation of moviegoers, who can enjoy one of Katharine Hepburn’s finest performances (this is without a doubt my favorite Hepburn film) and the Oscar-winning turn by Bogie himself as a besotted ship captain who finds true love with the unlikeliest object of anyone’s affections: “a crazy, psalm-singing, skinny old maid.”

Confession being good for the soul, I must come clean and admit that I had every intention of putting together something for Meredith’s Bogie Blogathon over at Forever Classics but as it has happened so many times in the past, time slipped away from me and caught me flatfooted.  Fortuitously, the anniversary of Queen came up and allowed me to hoist a flute of champagne to it but you have to mosey over to ECOF and read the full story there.  (What can I say, Meredith…I desperately need courses in time management.)

Sorry seems to be the hardest word to say…though personally, I have difficulty with “onomatopoeia”…

I know…you don’t have to tell me.  I’ve looked at the number of posts I’ve managed to generate for the month of December so far, and even I’m flabbergasted at the depths of my inactivity.  Six posts total…and two of them were Mr. Schweier’s.  I was more prolific in March 2010, and that was the time I was flat on my back with that nasty hospital thing.

Since I have nothing in the Thrilling Days of Yesteryear kitty that would even allow me to wave hello at a lawyer, I’m going to have to conduct my own defense…and truth be told, I got nothin’.  I’ve been dabbling in other projects (it’s starting to look like I have a regular Friday feature over at Edward Copeland’s from the way the assignments fell this month—in fact, there’ll be a pointer to an essay appearing in this space then) but mostly I’ve been trying to shake off a crippling holiday malaise that seems to have sapped my creative muse and left her bleeding in that alley over yonder after swiping her purse.  A good portion of my free time has had me once again wrestling with that paean to inefficiency known as the United States Postal Service; I won’t bore you with all the details only to say that my former Savannah nemesis, Smock Lady, appears to have put a few more minions on her evil payroll.

If it’s not the Athens Post Office that has my number, it’s a McDonald’s in town that apparently cannot process an order containing more than one item; my Mom stopped by there to grab a cheeseburger (she foolishly went without lunch Tuesday because she was assisting my young nephew in the partaking of his) and when she asked me if I wanted anything I replied that I’d like a large orange drink.  The cheeseburger came out fine-and-dandy (they even left off the onions like she requested) but the McD’s employees called a beverage audible at the last minute and I found myself choking on a Mr. Pibb, one of the most loathsome and odious beverages ever created by man.  (I’m not making this up.  If Superman’s kryptonite was in soda form, it would be Mr. Pibb.)  My sister Debbie took the ‘rents to a Mickey D’s in her neck of the woods one morning for breakfast this past summer and boasted proudly that they never get an order right…so Mom and I have come to the conclusion that they’ve opened up a franchise here in the Classic City.

Sure, I know what you’re thinking: “Boy, the holidays really bring out his paranoia, huh?”  (Clinking marbles in hand) Ah, but the strawberries…that's...that's where I had them…they laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with... geometric logic... that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist, and I'd have produced that key if they hadn't of pulled the Caine out of action…I…I…I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officers...um…heh heh…well, I seem to have wandered off the point.

Debbie is partly responsible for the blog inactivity because she and her husband (and that scamp of a niece Rachel) will be paying us a visit shortly after Christmas and Mom is in major fattened-calf-preparation-mode, so I’m helping out wherever I can.  Last week, I was entrusted with the weighty responsibility of unwrapping Snickers minis so that Mumsy could prepare candy bar cookies.  (Please…save your applause for the end of the post.)  I have since been appointed chief sampler of Mater’s bakery wares, and my current fave is a little cookie entitled “Night and Day” (specifically inspired by the Cole Porter standard*) that features both your semi-sweet morsels and your white chocolate chips.  (If there is a Heaven, they’re serving these at the various hot cocoa establishments that I also imagine dot the landscape inside the Pearly Gates.)

So with a little more than a week before the sands of 2011’s hourglass run out, I have sworn to myself that I am going to be more productive in the coming year—call it early New Year’s resolutions if you like…in fact, I insist because on the off-chance that these pronouncements don’t come to fruition I’ll be excused because everybody knows a verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.  (Sam Goldwyn.)  But that’s kind of silly when you think about it, because I’m not actually saying this but writing…well, there’s no sense in splitting hairs.  On to the resolutions…

1)      I’m going to start posting more regularly on the blog.  I’ve been distracted by the things I mentioned in the previous paragraphs but also by other shiny trinkets (I don’t know if you’ve heard of this, but there’s this Facebook app called CityVille that lets you design your own city and it is as addictive as crack—for me, anyway).  I’ve got piles of movies recorded on DVD-R from the days when I could watch The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ without having to decide two-out-of-three falls with my father—who, by the way, tried to tell me earlier this evening (as he was channel surfing like a man possessed) that Operation Repo is now on the History Channel.

ME: What’s historical about people swearing and being unpleasant to one another while they’re taking other individual’s automobiles?

DAD: Well, they have Pawn Stars and American Pickers on there, don’t they?

ME: That’s logical…people bring in items of historical value…

DAD: Storage Wars is on there, too…

For the record, I checked on that…and Storage Wars is on A&E, which is channel 49 on our cable system.  (The History Channel is 47.)

2)      I’ve also got some free swag to give away—had I received it sooner, I would have tried to make it available in time for Christmas…but I would have also had to depend on the Post Office, which answers to no one but themselves.

3)      I’m also planning to make good on some commitments I made to some folks concerned some free stuff they sent my way…and I profusely apologize for taking so long on this but in case this is your first visit to the blog—I am lazy beyond belief sometimes.

4)      The good people at VCI were also kind enough to send me free goodies, and I’ll be watching them on a regular basis and giving you my take on them.  Ditto for my BBFF Stacia, who was most generous in bestowing upon me prized cinematic artifacts from the She Blogged by Night archives.

Speaking of Stacia (smooth as glass, I tells ya), I want to thank her publicly (and gigantically) for the lovely Christmas card she sent my family and I, as well as faithful TDOY reader Dan O. in the wilds of The Great White North for thinking of us here at the House of Yesteryear with similar card-like sentiments (my mother is a sucker for baby harp seals, btw).  My good friend ClassicBecky also sent some Christmas cheer, for which I am most thankful…I don’t know if she’ll see this or not because she is currently experiencing technical troubles at WBKY (apparently the cable wiring in the building housing her new bachelorette digs is not up to code) but in case she does…a thousand thanks, Miss Driscoll.

I’m hoping to be able to get the Coming Distractions for January 2012 up before…well, before January 2012, natch (because of my sister’s visit, blogging will be sort of spotty but I will be making the call to the bullpen to have Phil pinch-hit with some first-rate film noir reviews) and I have one or two posts that I’m working on in the meantime.  If by some odd chance I don’t see everybody before then I want to wish everyone a happy holiday and best wishes for the upcoming New Year.

*Yes, I made this up.

“My name’s Friday…I’m a cop.”

The recent passing of character great Harry Morgan cast a notable pall over the House of Yesteryear because it coincided with a tribute I was working on for Edward Copeland on Film…and More to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the television debut of Dragnet, which premiered on Chesterfield Sound-Off Time 60 years ago on this date before becoming a regular series on NBC Thursday nights (in its first year, however, it alternated weekly with another OTR chestnut introduced to the boob tube, Gangbusters).  If you’ve been reading this blog for some time now, you know that I am one of the world’s biggest fans of the seminal cop show—in fact, I broke out several of the Dragnet DVD sets while I was writing the Copeland piece and got my nostalgia on, so to speak.

I have two very vivid memories of the 1967-70 version of Dragnet, on which Morgan co-starred as Joe Friday’s (Jack Webb) partner when Friday’s sidekick, Frank Smith, was unable to appear in the revival of the program that originally aired on TV from 1951-59 (actor Ben Alexander was by the time of the 1966 Dragnet pilot appearing on ABC’s Felony Squad with Howard Duff and Dennis Cole and the producers wouldn’t give him a release).  The first was watching the show when I was a kid; it could have been at the tail-end of its original network run but more than likely it was probably when the show first hit syndication—anyway, there’s a fourth season episode entitled “Homicide: Who Killed Who” that features Friday and Gannon investigating a series of homicides and before one of the victims expires he whispers the cryptic words “Oft One.”  I have no idea why this episode gave me nightmares as a young tad but it did.

The other occurred during my days of exile in Morgantown, WV during the 1990s—I was living with my BFF The Duchess and her family before striking out on my own and her husband and I had a nightly ritual in which we would watch Dragnet on Nick at Nite every evening, howling with derisive laughter any time one of the “drug” episodes were repeated (particularly when the characters who disagreed with star Webb’s “gateway drug theory” were written as arrogant, campy Batman villains)…and imitating Webb and Morgan’s nodding in assent to each other just to see who could break the other up first.  (This probably coincided with the time that he and I devoured an entire box of Snickers ice cream bars in one sitting, thanks for noticing.)  I’ve stated many times in the past that despite the show’s frequent descent into Reefer Madness absurdity, Dragnet is one of my favorite TV series of all time.  I cannot stress enough, however, that you really need to acquaint yourself with the classic radio broadcasts (particularly those with Barton Yarbrough, who played Joe Friday’s first compadre, Ben Romero) to understand why Dragnet was such a groundbreaking show.

The post you have just read is true.  The names have not been changed, because nobody is innocent.

“Put your pants on, Spartacus…”

Fifty years ago on this date, Billy Wilder’s Cold War comedy One, Two, Three premiered in movie theaters…and this is the very first Wilder film I remember seeing (yes, even before Some Like It Hot, The Apartment and a gazillion other classics) though my muddled memories of childhood could only conjure up that final image of a pissed-off James Cagney holding a bottle of Pepsi Cola in his hand and yelling for his lackey (“Schlemmer!”) until I saw it again in later years (I think it was on a local Savannah station—which should give you an idea of how long ago that was; fortunately it later became available on DVD).  I’m still fond of the movie even though many of the jokes haven’t aged well (yes, Billy—we get it…Communists live in a shitty country and have backward customs), mostly because it’s a sheer delight watching Cagney move at his rat-a-tat pace in one of the fastest comedies committed to celluloid.  (I volunteered to commemorate the movie’s birthday at Edward Copeland on Film…and More, which I welcome you to peruse at your leisure.)

Also celebrating an anniversary today—though just a year shy of the five-oh mark—are the blogosphere’s wackiest parents, Ozzie and…er, I mean Nana (Irene to ClassicBecky) and Pop Shreve, or as I refer to them around Rancho Yesteryear, “the ‘rents.”  (Sorry about the poor quality of the photo, by the way—I cropped it from a larger one taken at ShreveFest 2011 this year.)  I never cease to be amazed at how the sitcom that is my folks’ marriage keeps getting renewed season after season, but they must be doing something right because it’s been going on for 49 years now and still does respectable numbers.  We will celebrate this auspicious occasion with a sumptuous dinner prepared by my Mom because she is watching every penny we spend as if she were running for higher office.  (Honestly—I offered to take them out to dinner.)  To the two people in my life whom I love and owe so much I can only say “Happy Anniversary!”

Guest Review Double Feature: I Wake Up Screaming, Then I Walk Alone

By Philip Schweier

With Mrs. Wife out doing the Black Friday thing, I availed myself of a film noir double feature, courtesy of Netflix.

Part the first was I Wake Up Screaming (1941), directed by H. Bruce Humberstone and starring Victor Mature and Betty Grable. Mature plays Frankie Christopher, a moderately successful promoter who is out on the night club circuit with pals Jerry MacDonald (William Gargan), a newspaper columnist, and Robin Ray (Alan Mowbray), an actor whose career has taken a downward turn. Taking a cue from Pygmalion, the three take a shine to a waitress, Vicky Lynn (Carole Landis), and convince her they can turn her into the hippest thing in Manhattan society. She’s no gullible kid from the sticks, but nevertheless, she rolls the dice.

Much to her delight, the brain trust comes through. She’s a model; a socialite; a singer; and becomes famous for being, well, famous. Much like the attention-starved media-magnets of today (*cough* Kardashian *cough*), she starts to believe her own publicity and evolves into a self-serving tramp. So when Hollywood comes a-calling, she throws all three of her suitors to the curb and catches the westbound – literally.

All of this is told courtesy of dual flashbacks as police simultaneously question Frankie and Jill Lynn (Betty Grable), Vicky’s sister. She also tells of a strange man whom she had seen lurking about, watching her. The cops call in Inspector Cornell (Laird Cregar), only to have Jill finger him as her sister’s stalker.

Frankie is suspect #1 in Vicky’s murder, but his two buddies each become a “person of interest” as it comes to light she’d been playing them all, handing out house keys like Halloween candy. But the D.A. is taking a shine to Harry Williams (Elisha Cook Jr.), the young man who mans the front desk in Vicky’s apartment building (those front desk clerks, there’s always something hinky about ‘em).

(Ivan’s note: “Hardy har har…”)

As the investigation ensues, Jill seems more inclined to believe Frankie didn’t kill her sister, a notion borne out when Frankie asks her out and she accepts. After an evening of all the finest entertainment New York City has to offer, she’s convinced of Frankie’s innocence, and is prepared to return to Frankie a rather damning note he had written Vicky. Cornell steps in, but Jill helps Frankie take it on the lam.

Now, as much as I enjoyed this little thriller, here’s what has me flummoxed: Nowhere in the history of Hollywood is the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” used more than in this picture. Not even in The Wizard of Oz (1939), released two years prior by another studio. It’s Jill’s theme, playing anytime she’s on-screen, even when she and Frankie break into a bicycle shop to use a hacksaw to free him from Cornell’s handcuffs.

Escapee Frankie begins looking into Vicky’s death, aided and abetted by Jill, who’s providing the clues. Naturally, she can’t go to the cops; that skeevy Inspector Cornell intimidates her. In fact, he intimidates everyone, and in my opinion Laird Cregar was a talent who left us too soon, having passed away in 1944 at the age of 31. In every movie I’ve seen him in, he gives a first rate performance.

In the end, of course, Frankie is able to expose the real murderer and give Cornell his comeuppance. The movie has ample twists and turns without getting silly, and if you haven’t seen this tasty little film noir, I recommend you do.

Part deux of my day-off double feature was I Walk Alone (1948). I was disappointed with Tough Guys Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, I expected better. The problem lies not with their performances, but with the pace of the film that seems to move slow as molasses, courtesy of writer Charles Schnee and director Byron Haskin.

Lancaster plays Frankie Madison, a former bootlegger who’s just been released from prison after 14 years. The first 30 minutes of the film relate his reunion with Noll Turner (Douglas), with whom he seems to share some bad blood. Turner operates a swanky nightclub, the Regent, so he arranges a little dinner for Frankie with his singer/girlfriend Kay Lawrence (Lizabeth Scott), hoping he’ll drop his guard and reveals his plans following his unfortunate incarceration.

Frankie explains to Kay how he and Noll were on a run one night at the end of Prohibition and had just crossed the border into the States when they were set upon by would-be hijackers. A running gun battle turned fatal but they got away. Knowing the cops would be after them, the two decide to split up to better their chances, with a promise of whatever happens, it’s 50/50 all the way.

Now, 14 years later, Noll is in the chips and Frankie is just another ex-con, and he’s looking to collect his share. Noll hands him a check for $3,000, his share of the speakeasy they used to run. Dave (Wendell Corey), an old pal from Prohibition days and now Noll’s bookkeeper, explains how the old joint fell on hard times in the wake of repeal and the Depression.

Feeling cheated, Frankie enlists the aid of Nick Palestro (Marc Lawrence), who rounds up a handful of guys to muscle in on the Regent. Unfortunately for Frankie, Noll has the Regent tied up with so many corporate rules and legal agreements, Noll couldn’t give him a piece of it even if he wanted to. Feeling betrayed on all fronts, Frankie vows revenge, and Dave is sympathetic enough to turn in his resignation.

But you don’t resign from the mob, and when he meets his end and the crime is laid at Frankie’s door, he promises retribution, swift and terrible. Of course by now, Kay has bailed on Noll also, partly for beating up Frankie, but mostly for throwing her over for a wealthy socialite (Kristine Miller).

It’s a good story, and Kirk Douglas is in top form as a major league essobee, though Lancaster’s frequent rages get tiresome. The pace just moved too slow to suit me.

“Shut up! You ain't gonna be tellin' nobody nothin' pretty soon!”

If you watch any of the three movies scheduled on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ this evening to commemorate what would have been actor Broderick Crawford’s 100th birthday, I cannot recommend strongly enough All the King’s Men (1949), the film that won Mr. C a Best Actor Academy Award (and based on what is probably my favorite novel of all time—well, it’s closely tied with John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath—by Robert Penn Warren).  The role of demagogic populist Willie Stark (loosely based on the real-life Governor Huey P. Long) vaulted the former character actor into leading man roles and he followed his King’s Men showcase with another great turn opposite Judy Holiday in Born Yesterday (1950).

Critics have always slammed Brod because they argue that most of the movies he appeared in were simply variations of the uncouth and tyrannical Harry Brock in Yesterday—but Crawford’s a big fave here at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, with such wonderful performances in films like Larceny, Inc., Black Angel, The Time of Your Life, The Mob, Scandal Sheet, Lone Star, Human Desire, The Fastest Gun Alive…and so many more.  He also achieved television immortality as the star of TV’s Highway Patrol; as Chief Dan Matthews, he was making highways safe long before Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada rode motorcycles (in fact, Crawford turned up in an episode of CHiPs as himself and he wasn’t shy about pointing that out).

To pay tribute to an actor who may not have had the greatest range in the thespic arts but certainly never gave a boring performance, I wrote up a little something over at Edward Copeland on Film…and More which you are certainly welcome to check out at your leisure.  Incidentally, Crawford is the man I think of when I picture J. Edgar Hoover (he played the Head Fed in Larry Cohen’s 1977 cult film The Private Life of J. Edgar Hoover)…not that Leonardo DiCaprio punk.

Guest Review: Shadow(s) on the Big Screen

By Philip Schweier

In 1931, Walter Gibson, under the penname of Maxwell Grant, was tapped to write the adventures of The Shadow for Street & Smith magazines. Gibson’s history as a newspaper reporter and amateur magician made him ideally suited to craft on of the most popular crimefighters of the era. Over the next 15 years, he would write all but a handful of the more than 300 stories featuring the mysterious Master of Darkness.

But then, in 1946, The Shadow magazine did the unthinkable: it replaced him.

Bruce Elliott wrote 14 The Shadow stories, and these are regarded by many to be a low point in the character’s history. Many of the elements that had contributed to the magazine’s popularity disappeared, and the character became just another crime solving detective, The Shadow becoming a barely-used persona that he uses to sneak around. In fact, there is one story in which Cranston never appears as his crimefighting counterpart.

Some say it was a salary dispute, but one possible reason may have the potentially lucrative idea of licensing The Shadow for motion pictures. The Shadow had already appeared in three Saturday matinee B-pictures/serials starring Rod LaRocque and Victor Jory, but a new series was being launched at Monogram Pictures, famous for its low budget productions.

The Shadow Returns (1946) starred Kane Richmond as The Shadow, who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men. As the nephew of police commissioner Weston (Pierre Watkin), he is an amateur sleuth/criminologist, akin to that of the radio version of Lamont Cranston, palling around with lovely friend and companion Margo Lane (Barbara Read) and cab driver Shrevvy (Tom Dugan). Both were later featured in the Shadow stories published in the magazine, as well as two peripheral characters, Burbank and Hawkeye.

Under the authority of the police, a grave is being opened to expose hidden gems, being smuggled into the country from overseas. But when Yomans (Emmett Vogan), who led the cops to the gems, disappears into the nearby mansion of Michael Hasdon (Frank Reicher), Weston and Inspector Cardona (Joseph Crehan) move quickly to investigate. The house is full of various suspicious characters, including Charles Frobay (Robert Emmett Keane) an importer.  Hasdon inexplicably leaps to his death from the balcony. But it doesn’t tale long to turn to a clear case of murder.

The investigation suggests gems were being smuggled into the country from overseas using dead bodies, courtesy of Frobay Imports. Lamont, Margo and Shrevvy look into Frobay’s import business, where they spot Hasden’s butler, John Adams (Cyril Delevanti), lurking around. After a visit to Frobay they return to Shrevvy’s cab only to discover a corpse, dead for a week, later revealed to be Yomans. This clinches the idea that the fake Yomans was really one of Hasdon’s guests the night he died.

Cranston, as The Shadow, returns to Hasdon’s mansion where Adams follows his late master over balcony, another apparent suicide. The Shadow returns to Frobay, where the man takes a Brody over the second-floor catwalk of the warehouse. Lamont and Margo discover a secret passage from Frobay’s warehouse to a secret lab where he had been developing a new plastic formula. This gives Lamont all the information he needs to trick the murderer into betraying himself. At The Shadow’s behest, Weston and Cardona call all the suspects together at Hasden’s house. There he reveals the culprit, and the method of the murders.

The Missing Lady (1946) opens with Cranston sleeping in a Bowery flophouse where he’s trying to dig up some leads on the month-old murder of a wealthy art collector. Exposed as a stoolie, Cranston returns home with his faithful cab driver Shrevvy (George Chandler), where he is sidetracked by another murder in his own apartment building. Cranston’s neighbor, Ann Walsh (Frances Robinson) and her friend Gilda (Jo Carroll Dennison) initially accuse him of the murder, but his uncle, Commissioner Weston (Pierre Watkin), is able to spring him from jail. But when Walsh, ends up dead, all eyes look to Cranston. Cranston is assisted in clearing his name by Shrevvy and their girlfriends, Margo Lane (Barbara Read) and Jenny Delaney (Dorothea Kent).

Cranston begins to see a connection among all three deaths, that being the Jade Lady, a statuette that’s been missing (hence the title of the film) since the first killing. He trails Gilda to the upstairs apartment of John Fields (George Lewis). With all this excitement going on under his very nose, Cranston looks to the most likely witnesses: two spinster sisters (Almira Sessions and Nora Cecil) who bought the building so they could race the elevators up and down.

Disguised as floozies, Lucy and Ethe – er, Margo and Jenny – follow Lamont and Shrevvy to a Bowery dive. Cranston seems to know a great deal, dropping clues with little comment as to where they come from. There, Cranston questions Rose (Claire Carleton), who leads him into a trap with the brutal Ox (Jack Overman), who is revealed to be Ann Walsh’s husband (again, how Cranston knows this is never fully explained). Ox is beating on Cranston when the hapless Inspector Cardona (James Flavin) and Weston arrive.

Despite the pounding, Cranston seems to have cracked the case and promises to have the statuette at his apartment the following night. But all this is said for Ox’s benefit, who shows up at Cranston’s place looking for the statue. He flees upstairs to Fields’ place where the police have gathered all the suspects. There, Cranston reveals all and exposes the culprit.

In between these two productions was another Shadow film, entitled Behind the Mask (1946). All three were written by George Callahan who wrote many of the Charlie Chan mysteries for Monogram. As such, one can’t expect a great deal of mystery thrills, but there are certainly worse ways to kill an hour.

“Don't tell me the jive session has beat off without baby!”

Seventy years ago on this date, the Howard Hawks-directed (and Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett-scripted) Ball of Fire premiered in movie theaters, and there’s an interesting backstory about the essay that I wrote to commemorate the occasion at Edward Copeland on Film…and More.  Ed had originally planned to tackle it himself, but the DVD of the movie, released by MGM Home Video in 2007, is now OOP—they want $77.98 for a new copy over at Amazon.com, a tariff that is a little beyond Mr. Copeland’s budget.  (Or anyone’s budget, for that matter.)  A search to see if it was going to turn up on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ also yielded no results.

Fortunately, I already owned a copy of this—when it was released by HBO Video in 1998—and so I agreed to take on the assignment…it gave me a chance to revisit what I think is one of the most entertaining of screwball comedies.  I mention in the Copeland piece that it’s my favorite of Barbara Stanwyck’s films (and it is) and that in a saner world she would have nabbed the Oscar for her priceless comedic turn (no disrespect to winner Joan Fontaine, but she gives a better performance in Letter from an Unknown Woman).  Co-star Gary Cooper did win an Academy Award that year, but for the Stacia-reviled Sergeant York…to be honest, I enjoy his performance in Fire a lot more.

I’m hoping that now I’ve completed a pair of Radio Spirits assignments I can get back to posting on a regular basis (or what passes for it) on the blog, but I did want to thank Brother Philip Schweier for his contributions during my absence…and to assure the new groupies he’s acquired that he’s sent in a few more reviews that I’m planning to put on the Thrilling Days of Yesteryear refrigerator soon.  I also regret not getting up a traditional Thanksgiving greeting this year, so I hope everyone out there in YesteryearLand had a happy one; the ‘rents and I went over to sister Kat’s for the big meal where we not only had the traditional turkey but also a succulent rib roast prepared by sister K.  Afterward, we were entertained by my nephew Davis with a medley of his hits including Itsy Bitsy Spider and some Yuletide-oriented fare (Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman).  (To my dismay, my shouted requests of Freebird fell on deaf ears.)

Me-TV viewers probably noticed a small schedule change earlier this week in that the channel watched Marshal Dillon (the half-hour Gunsmokes) and Rawhide ride off into the sunset—I know Encore Westerns has acquired Rawhide for its schedule of classic TV oaters beginning next year but I don’t know about Dillon (the Me-TV reruns are far more beat up than the ones released on DVD by CBS-Paramount, by the way).  Replacing Rawhide on the schedule is Mission: Impossible (yay) and coming off the bench for the Dillon repeats on late night weeknights is Peter Gunn…but the real treat will be on Saturday mornings (starting tomorrow) from 11-12 because Me-TV will introduce repeats of The Rebel into the rotation.  A press release at the channel’s website says that Wagon Train and Have Gun – Will Travel are also planned for the near future…but I’m guessing that will be when Encore is done with them.  So I’ll be clearing my schedule on Saturday mornings to watch Nick Adams as Johnny Yuma (I’ve never seen the show, but I can the Johnny Cash theme song on request) and I’m sure those of you who have an affiliate in your area will want to do the same.

Guest Review: How Can Something So Wong Be So White?

By Philip Schweier

In the 1930s, the Monogram motion picture studio attempted to capitalize on the success of Fox’s Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto movie series with its own stories of a benevolent and wise Chinese detective. And like Fox, Monogram chose a non-Asian actor to assume the role of Mr. Wong, created by Hugh Wiley for a series of stories published in Colliers magazine. He is an intelligent and cultured man of Chinese heritage in San Francisco, and a de facto consultant to the police

While Boris Karloff is today regarded as a major horror star, it may be somewhat dismaying to see him “slumming” in B movies (the B stands for basement). But the truth is Karloff, as a “serious” thespian, was rarely provided very ambitious material.

However, in my opinion what elevates an actor above his station is not the material he is provided but what he chooses to do with it. Karloff was a professional actor, so he acted, and did so well enough to raise the quality of the films in which he appeared. Granted, many were pretty low-budget (Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome, anyone?), but after achieving fame as Frankenstein’s monster, it gave him the opportunity to do more than grunt and look menacing.

Maybe he had a mortgage payment due, or maybe he saw it a means to keep his name in front of the audience’s – and studio executives – collective eyes. Either way, it’s certainly more appealing than sitting around the house waiting for the phone to ring.

In Mr. Wong, Detective (1938), Simon Dayton (Superman’s Perry White, John Hamilton) shows up on Wong’s doorstep pleading for help. His life has been threatened and the amiable Mr. Wong is only too happy to help. Unfortunately, their 10 a.m. appointment the next day is about five minutes too late, as Dayton dies within the proverbial locked room.

Among the suspects are Dayton’s two business partners, who only moments prior to his demise convinced him to sign an added clause to their contract, making each the recipient of the others’ share of the company in the event of death. But when they also are done in, it leaves fewer options for whoever the guilty party might be.

As a mystery, it’s a fun little romp, with ample misdirection as well as red herrings provided by a cabal of foreign spies. As I said, Karloff presents Wong with intelligence and dignity, but if there is a downside, it would only be that the Asian aspect of the character seems superfluous. The plot was later recycled by Monogram for Docks of New Orleans (1948), one of the last of the Charlie Chan movies.

The Mystery of Mr.Wong (1939) followed a year later, in which Wong is invited to a party by Brendan Edwards (Morgan Wallace), whose life has been threatened over his possession of the Eye of the Daughter of the Moon, a magnificent gem. Edwards is killed during the party, but Wong is quickly on the case, investigating the Edwards household. It includes Valerie Edwards (Dorothy Tree), the long-suffering wife, and her devoted secretary, Peter Harrison (Craig Reynolds), as well as Michael Strogonoff (Ivan Lebedeff), a parasitic musician whom the Edwards are sponsoring. A handful of Chinese servants are also among the suspects.

Unfortunately, this is not a “play fair” mystery, in that there are details to which the audience is not privy until the very end, as Wong reveals the killer. Still, Karloff is in top form and may account for the overall appeal of the film.

Mr. Wong in Chinatown (1939) was the next entry in the series. Wong is paid a late night visit the Princess Lin Hwa (Lotus Long), a high mucky-muck with a Chinese tea company, who arrived a few weeks back. She is assassinated before he can speak with her and Wong and police captain Bill Street (Grant Withers) go to investigate the ship she rode in on. Why they seem to feel Captain Jaime (William Royle) should know anything about one passenger’s personal beeswax isn’t fully explained, though unbeknownst to them, he’s clearly involved in something shady. Kibitzing the investigation is snoopy reporter Bobbie Logan (Marjorie Reynolds).

Wong looks into the princess’s finances, courtesy of her bank’s president, Mr. David (Huntley Gordon). The detective must be on the right trail somewhere, because an attempt is made on his life. He discovers the princess was in the States to buy arms on behalf of her brother, a general in China. Captain Jackson (George Lynn) of the Phelps Aviation Company was to sell her some planes but the company is revealed to be a sham.

Wong is led into a trap, only to be rescued by Street. Wong then reveals all for the benefit of the authorities and the criminals, to convince them that he knows their game better than they do. Like Mr. Wong, Detective, it also provided fodder for the Charlie Chan series, remade as The Chinese Ring (1947).

When a police buddy of Capt. Street’s is killed in The Fatal Hour (1940), Wong leaps in to help with the investigation. The dead cop’s last known location, the Neptune Club, leads them to Harry “Hardway” Lockett (Frank Puglia). Not only is he a gambler and smuggler, he’s sicced Tanya Serova (Lita Chevret) on Frank Belden Jr. (Craig Reynolds), whose father has gotten sucked into Hardway’s smuggling operation. It seems dear old dad – soon to be dead old dad – is in over his head and has been letting Hardway use his jewelry store as a front for his smuggled goods.

With Frank Belden Sr. dead, the smuggling trail now leads to John T. Forbes (Charles Trowbridge). Conveniently, he lives in the apartment directly below Ms. Serova, who also gets bumped off. Even though she’d been playing Belden Jr., she was starting to appreciate his naïve ideas of matrimony, if only as an out from under Hardway’s thumb. But it couldn’t be Hardway who killed her; he was in Street’s office at the time of the murder.

When a radio writer named Griswold (Jason Robards Sr.) claims to have vital information regarding the case, he is murdered right in the police station. It provides Wong with the vital clue to how Ms. Serova was murdered and who might be responsible. All the murders share common ballistics, so the whole mystery gets tied up in a neat little package.

Doomed to Die (1940) – aka “Mystery of the Wentworth Castle” – opens with stock footage of an ocean liner burning at sea, followed by stock footage of newspaper presses and newsboys touting the disaster of the SS Wentworth Castle. In the aftermath of the catastrophe, Cyrus B. Wentworth (Melvyn Lang), owner of the ship line, has a lot on his mind, not the least of which is that Dick Fleming (William Stelling), the son of his business rival, wants to marry his daughter. The two argue and Wentworth ends up dead. This is followed by more stock footage of cops on their radios and in patrol cars as the manhunt for Fleming ensues.

Wong is called in at the behest of reporter Bobbie Logan (Marjorie Reynolds), a close friend of Cynthia Wentworth (Catherine Craig). Using his Chinatown connections, he learns one of the passengers aboard the Wentworth Castle was Kai Lin, a Chinese smuggling tong funds into America. It turns out Kai Lin is also Lem Hou, the Wentworth family servant. Wentworth knew of the tong’s plan and the belief is he was murdered for his trouble. Slowly, the pieces begin to fall together.

Bobbie helps Dick escape from police custody, but when the police find him at his father’s home, Pops attempts to confess in order to save his son, but Wong won’t have it. He knows the real killer and all the whys and hows. Unfortunately, he declines to share most of them with the audience, as the culprit is hustled off to jail in short order.

This would prove to be Karloff’s final foray as the Chinese sleuth, as clearly the bloom was off the cherry blossom. No doubt the budget for the series had dropped below Monogram’s middling standards, given the ubiquitous stock footage and the obviously recycled footage from Mr. Wong in Chinatown.

Phantom of Chinatown (1940) starred Keye Luke, who until recently had been featured in the Charlie Chan movies as #1 son Lee Chan. This serves as a sort of prequel to the Boris Karloff films, as it depicts his first meeting with Capt. Street, and Wong is noticeably younger and more energetic. Rather that the sophisticated James Lee Wong, he is referred to as “Jimmy.”

Dr. Cyrus Benton (Charles Miller) has just returned from the Mongolian desert where he has discovered the “Tomb of Eternal Fire,” but at the cost of the expedition’s co-pilot Mason (John Holland), who was lost in Mongolia, his body never recovered. As he presents his findings, he collapses, poisoned. The police, led by Capt. Street (Grant Withers) arrive at the Benton home to investigate the man’s death.

Wong (Keye Luke), a family friend, is already on the scene and dopes out that the water glass Benton drank from contained poison. This scores points with Capt. Street, and the two decide to combine their efforts to solve the murder.

An artifact Benton brought back from China turns out to be missing, and holds the key to the whys of the murder. By laying a trap a trap the murderer can’t resist, Wong and Street hope to expose the culprit.

The story is much better than previous Wong outings, but Keye Luke brings very little to the role other than authentic Asian street cred. By this time, the series had run its course at Monogram. Perhaps when Fox ended its production of Charlie Chan movies in 1942, Monogram saw an opportunity to continue the “honorable Chinese detective” concept by picking up a more successful property. Chan’s first film under the Monogram banner was Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944).