The final film in the Mr. Moto series starring Peter Lorre. After this a Japanese heroic detective character became pretty hard to sell to the American public due to a little event called World War II. This one's pretty forgettable, Moto has an annoying British man following him around and stops a bunch of criminals from stealing a priceless crown in Egypt.
There was a RETURN OF MR. MOTO made almost 30 years later featuring Henry Silva in the title role. I've not heard much good about it so I'm pretty sure it's not essential viewing.
The 7th film in the Peter Lorre Mr. Moto series finds our Japanese detective in Puerto Rico, which I'm sure can be a dangerous island, trying to stop a diamond smuggling ring. He's helped out by a really dumb pro wrestler named Twister(Warren Hymer) which lead to some slapstick moments. There's only 1 more film in the series and you can see why since they seem to have run out of ideas by this point. This one was apparently originally supposed to be a Charlie Chan movie before they switched the fake Asian lead.
Historically important since this is the very first appearance of The Three Stooges on film. Not necessarily a great movie though. The Stooges, consisting of Shemp, Larry and Moe(credited under his real name of Harry Howard). here are goofy women-crazy firemen. They're not really the stars though which brings this one down a bit. Our main character is played by Ted Healy who was the leader of the vaudeville group before they ventured out on their own. AKA RUBE GOLDBERG'S SOUP TO NUTS(this was allegedly written by Mr. Goldberg(this seems to not be true) and he and some of his wacky inventions show up in the film)
A very young Billy Barty does running headstands over and over!:
Similar to how they filmed a Spanish-language DRACULA this here, translated as THERE WERE 13, is the Spanish version of CHARLIE CHAN CARRIES ON made on the same sets but with a different cast and crew. It's also one of the CHAN films that was thought lost until a print popped up. It's interesting to watch since for almost the first whole half there's no Chan at all until a fellow named Manuel Arbo appears as the famous detective for the one and only time. It's also of note being the only Spanish version of a CHAN flick made because they figured out dubbing shortly after this. The English version starring Warner Oland(his first in the role of Chan) doesn't seem to exist anymore thanks to a fire.
The plot deals with a jealous ex-lover getting revenge. Pretty typical stuff for this genre.
The 7th CHAN film starring Warner Oland. There would be over 30 to follow featuring a couple of different folks taking over the role. This one involves a knife-throwing trigger-happy killer who's trying to cover up for a bank that's selling fake bonds. If you've seen any of the films in this series you pretty much know exactly what to expect. This chapter is historically important as being the one to introduce Chan's #1 son(Keye Luke and actual Asian!) who would go on to be a regular.
This was considered a lost film until one remaining print of it was found in the 70s. There are still 4 other CHAN films that are missing.
Before watching this 3 Stooges short I had no idea that Lucille Ball had ever appeared with Moe, Larry & Curly. I also had no idea Roger Moore, who shows up briefly as a henchman, did! Besides these cameos this one isn't all that exceptional. The Stooges get mistaken for football heroes and end up playing ball very badly and that's about it.
This is the 2nd film in the MR. MOTO series satrring Peter Lorre. It's really neat to see Lorre kicking ass in these movies throwing people around like ragdolls using judo and outwitting everyone. Of course it's his stunt-double doing all the heavy lifting here. The majority of this movie is, as usual not really action but more mystery hijinks as Moto takes on some gangster treasure hunters. This might be the least comedic of the Moto films and quite a few people actually end up getting killed before Moto saves the day. Might be my fav out of the series but they do all kinda blend together.
I haven't seen a ton of comedies with Bela Lugosi in them so I checked this one out. Lugosi, as usual, does play the foreign bad guy here but at least he's not a mad scientist again. This is mainly a W.C. Fields slapstick showcase and he's pretty entertaining to watch. There's also a slew of other celebrities of the time including Burns & Allen, Cab Calloway(who sings a song about marijuana!), Rudy Vallee and Rose Marie from THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW(billed as Baby Rose Marie since she was only 10 years old when this was made). The big invention, that everyone in the movie is gathered to see, is just a T.V. but that was obviously a big deal back then. Old-timey sex jokes and weird dance numbers make this an amusing enough time-waster.
So Bela Lugosi plays an insurance salesman named Dr. Orloff who sells policies to folks that he is the sole beneficiary of and then has them killed off by his big ugly blind henchman named Jake(the titular Human Monster?). You see, as is pretty common in films from this era, Lugosi is also a mad-scientist-type on the side who can make bombs out of beakers full of liquid and that sort of thing. Oh and he's also a master of disguise which comes in very handy when he's found out.(so maybe he's the real 'Human Monster' after all)
I think this movie does a fairly decent job of conveying how outward signs of morality and generosity don't necessarily mean that a wholesome character lies beneath the surface. Then again maybe casting Lugosi, who always seems a bit ominous even when he's smiling, might not have been the most inspired casting to convey this idea. It is pretty obvious who is committing all these homicides throughout and it makes Orloff appear kinda naive thinking he was going to get away with it for very long. Luckily it wraps everything up in just 74 minutes, so that's a big plus.
Originally released in England as THE DARK EYES OF LONDON. Whereupon it was rated H for horrific!(there is one fairly gruesome, for the time anyway, drowning scene by our crazed Orloff) Jess Franco musta been a fan since he loved using the Dr. Orloff name quite often. There was a German remake in 1961 as THE DEAD EYES OF LONDON.
Beautiful Turkish poster!:
and beautiful clunky artwork on the Super 8 version (which I assume is some kinda 15 minute long condensed edition):
I bet every kid in 1939 was just dying to be Jake for Halloween!:
Growing up I watched a lot of late-night Charlie Chan flicks on the fuzzy UHF stations. I don't recall them showing very many Mr. Moto movies though. Being a fan of Peter Lorre I figured I should check them out. This here is the first one in a series of 8 and unlike the Chan films they seem to be a lot more serious in tone. This is probably due, in a large part, to how ominous Peter Lorre portrays our hero at times. He spends a lot of time acting like he's just a typical Japanese gentleman but when he gets serious and drops the act, and starts ass-kicking, I can see how he came to be known as one of the great horror icons. There's some judo-tossing action(including an impressive overhead tossing of a spy to his overboard death!) with an obvious stand-in for Lorre and it moves along fast enough at just over an hour that it's worth a look just for Lorre fans who don't mind a simple mystery plot. Being a Jew from Hungary he never does seem very Japanese to me but hey these were very different times and if this offends you you probably had terrible parents and are too sensitive to watch anything outside of modern-day children's programming and Hollywood superhero movies.
Mr. Moto series:
1. THINK FAST, MR. MOTO (1937)
2. THANK YOU, MR. MOTO (1937)
3. MR. MOTO'S GAMBLE (1938)
4. MR. MOTO TAKES A CHANCE (1938)
5. MYSTERIOUS MR. MOTO (1938)
6. MR. MOTO'S LAST WARNING (1939)
7. MR. MOTO IN DANGER ISLAND (1939)
8. MR. MOTO TAKES A VACATION (1939)
Caught this recently on a theatrical double-feature release, playing before the classic giant-ant flick THEM!. While this was a Halloween lead-up event, this movie has always been more of a Thanksgiving tradition for me and probably a great many other people of a certain age-group who live in the New York City area since it was shown here at that time of the year for a long, long time until TV became an empty cesspool of non-stop commercials and unwatchable puke.
What can you say about this classic except that it is the granddaddy of giant-monster movies thanks to it's variety of prehistoric creatures that pop-up, the FX-work by Willis O'Brien was revolutionary at the time and it's a great adventure/sci-fi/thriller of a movie that moves along briskly and doesn't ever get boring or bogged down. The actors are all amazing in that old-timey way, and Fay Wray becomes the icon of all scream-queens to follow.
There's only 1 official sequel but about a gazillion knock-offs and spoofs, a cartoon-version, a Japanese version and a few remakes including one from the 70s which I thought was pretty cool when I was a kid and a couple of newer cgi-ladened shitfests that I have no interest in ever bothering with.
Re-released 5 years later with this trailer:
French poster:
There's about a trillion alternate posters for this film!:
Boris Karloff starts this movie out as a pretty sympathetic doctor whose goal is to help humanity conquer death. Unfortunately to achieve this goal he has to kill a guy to prove out his theory and test out his mechanical heart-thing-a-ma-jig(this movie sorta predicts artificial hearts and heart-transplants way before they actually existed, so that's kinda cool and gives things a bit of a sci-fi feel)). This results in Dr. Savaard(Boris) getting himself sentenced to death by hanging. Now, to be clear, his "victim" did volunteer for all this but I guess he forgot to get that in writing. The second half of the film sees Karloff in his more typical role as a revenge-seeking, back-from-the-dead, murder-crazy monster. A pretty neat and short flick that's worth a look for old-timey horror/thriller fans. This must have been somewhat successful since Mr. Karloff would go on to play a mad-scientist of some sort or another in a whole bunch more films after this.
This is not the trailer despite the title but it is Boris and assistant doing some sciency stuff:
This is an early Bowery Boys flick, back when they were still known as The Dead End Kids, having to do with a boxer who gets framed for a murder and ends up on the run from the law. Claude Rains "The Invisible Man" is the detective on his trail. This earlier Dead End Kids incarnation is not as comedic as the boys would become later but they're still pretty goofy in what is mostly a pretty heavy dramatic film. This was directed by Busby Berkeley who is known mostly as a choreographer of big garish musical numbers from the 30s to the 50s but there's none of that crap here and apparently he was a fellow of many talents since this is a pretty solid epic and held my attention throughout even though it's unusually long for a 1930s movie. I guess I just dig the even more serious Bowery Boys stuff. AKA THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE
This might be of some interest to classic Universal monster movie fans since it features a few of the same folks that had starred in DRACULA just a year earlier. Of course you get Drac himself(Bela Lugosi), Van Helsing(Edward Van Sloan) and DEATH KISS' main star is John Harker(David Manners). Unfortunately there are no monsters in this and it's not even a horror film but is a rather dull mystery. Lugosi plays it pretty straight and doesn't even appear all that much despite having top-billing due to his DRAC fame. You do get to see a bunch of behind-the-scenes shots of a Hollywood studio in the 30s but there's not much else of note going on in this one.
This creaky oldie is basically a Tarzan movie with a gal replacing Tarzan(in Greece this was titled THE DAUGHTER OF TARZAN) and it's also half a comedy. The plot deals with a constantly drunk richman who wants to build a zoo on the property of his Westchester home so, of course, he travels to Africa to hunt down animals and bring them back. You would think a lady raised in the wild jungles by herself would be a lot tougher than this chick but that's not what you get. Our titular character always seems just about to be raped by the villain(or maybe just rough-housed since this is the 30s) and doesn't put up much of a fight. Luckily a killa gorilla comes along and saves her. It's all pretty silly and played for laughs most of the time but you do get a girl in a loincloth swinging around if that's your fetish.
The title made me think this might be some sorta crime-drama or maybe a film-noir type situation but it's actually a vampire movie trying to capitalize on the success of DRACULA from a few years earlier and the other similar vampire movies that came in its wake. It was re-released as DEMON OF DOOM which is a better title for a monster movie. This one's a little different than usual because the vampire in it(Ralph Morgan) is a monster because his mom was bitten by a gigantic vampire bat and only turns into a monster at night and doesn't remember what murderin' he gets up to. Of course this all seems more like the activity of a werewolf than a vampire but hey it was the 1930s and I guess these things weren't all figured out yet. There's also a hunchback that the townsfolk seem to despise. It's all kinda dull and you could easily skip this one unless you really dig the old creaky classics and have run out of classic ones.
There is some interesting nerd trivia though: They used some of the same sets from THE VAMPIRE BAT (1933) and some costumes were borrowed from THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.
If you thought 1932's THE MUMMY with Boris Karloff was too exciting of a movie here's a similar even slower film from '33 with ol' Boris playing a guy who comes back from the dead thanks to an Egyptian curse. Mr. Karloff does a good enough job as the ugly-faced monster but just like with THE MUMMY I had a hard time getting into this one mostly due to its snail-like pace. You do get a chance to watch the great Ernest Thesinger(Dr. Pretorius from FRANKENSTEIN) as a butler so that's something to see if you can stay awake.
Japanese flavored!:
Known in Argentina as EL VAMPIRO(not to be confused with the Mexican EL VAMPIRO):
I've heard a few people claim that this Spanish version of DRACULA, shot at the same time and on the same sets as the original, is the superior version and I can kinda see why they would say that. Right off the bat though Bela Lugosi is way better as the title monster than our Spanish fellow here, whose strange facial features kind of remind me of Andy Kaufman from time to time. The rest of the movie does seem to play a bit better, the ladies all dress a bit skimpier and even though it's about a half hour longer it seems to move more quickly than the original. Of course having seen the other DRACULA so many times this most likely just seems fresh in comparison and perhaps if I grew up with this other version I would think the opposite. Either way though it's worth checking out at least once for old-school monster kids.
Supposedly this may have not been the only classic Universal monster movie that was shot this way and there might have been alternate Spanish version of others. If so none of those others seem to have survived but I sure would dig seeing a classic Spanish FRANKENSTEIN!
While this has never been my favorite of the classic Universal monster movies, due to it's slow-moving action and stagey feel, it's such an iconic film, thanks mainly to the performance of Bela Lugosi, that even all the negatives are swept aside and it's historical significance shines through. Dwight Frye is also quite awesome with his signature laugh as the bug-eating servant of Mr. Dracula, Renfield.
I was happy I got the chance to view this in an actual theater along with it's Spanish version last night and the main thing I realized in this setting is how quiet the film is. I mean besides the opening titles there's no soundtrack at all so the audience got to enjoy the sounds of the retarded Hollywood movie playing next door as well thanks to the piss-poor construction of your modern-day shithole multiplex theater. But even this couldn't take away from the experience of watching on of the most influential horror classics.
I don't know much about The Ritz Brothers but from what I can tell they're like an even more retarded and less funny version of The Three Stooges. They starred in a whole string of films throughout the 30's that I probably will never bother watching. If they're not annoying enough for you they also throw in a screaming hysterical woman(Patsy Kelly) which was apparently a popular thing to have in horror movies in the 30's. This one is only of interest because Bela Lugosi appears as a creepy butler. A guy with hairy hands called "The Gorilla" is going around killing people. Also there's a "real" gorilla(a guy in an old-timey gorilla suit of course) and a crazy convoluted mystery plot. The best thing about these old classics is that they're all usually around 60 minutes and in this one Lugosi gets to, at least in one scene, be a hero which is something you rarely see. In addition to Lugosi, Universal monster regular Lionel Atwill also appears.
