From the Vaults: 'The Wolf Man' (1941)

Well, I am fudging on the year again this week, mostly because I had 1941's "The Wolf Man" in my queue and felt like watching it. And here at From the Vaults, that means I felt like writing about it! Let's go!

Starring lovable lummox Lon Chaney Jr., this is the Universal classic that helped create the modern werewolf trope, embroidering moonlight, silver and pentagrams onto an Old World shape-changer story. (As with "The Mummy," there's no direct source material.) Lycanthropic hero/monster Larry Talbot would go on to be resurrected Jason-style in a string of sequels, all featuring Chaney, whose name became synonymous with the role -- his character is even listed in the opening credits as just "The Wolf Man." (I guess there wasn't much point trying to surprise the audience.) To watch this movie is to watch horror history. It's even got Bela Lugosi!

After his older brother's death, Larry comes home to the family estate, still run by his hale and hearty dad (a no-nonsense Claude Rains). As horror heroes go, Larry's not a real cerebral guy -- he's not theatrical like Dracula or brainy like Dr. Frankenstein or interested in raiding old tombs like all those "Mummy" guys. He's more of a guy's guy, who likes to fix stuff and check out babes; after repairing his dad's telescope, he's soon using it to spy on beautiful shopgirl Gwen (Evelyn Ankers). Gwen turns out to be engaged, but persistent Larry gallantly escorts her and a friend to a gypsy fair anyway. Big mistake!

From the Vaults: 'Portrait in Black' (1960)

"Portrait in Black" has just about everything you need for a campy good time: Sandra Dee! Lana Turner in an increasingly elaborate selection of diamond earrings! A very tan Anthony Quinn! Former silent film actress Anna May Wong as a housekeeper named Tawny! It goes on a little long, but this thriller is almost never boring. Pour yourself your favorite vintage cocktail (perhaps an Aviation?) and have a look.

Sheila Cabot (Turner) is weary of nursing her unpleasant invalid husband, a shipping magnate who lies in his hospital bed stroking his Siamese cat and running his empire with the help of sidekick Howard Mason (the aptly named Richard Basehart). About the only bright spot in Sheila's days is her affair with her husband's doctor, David Rivera (Quinn). Together they decide to put her husband out of his misery. How unethical!

After the murder, things are looking good for the couple until Sheila starts receiving taunting, anonymous notes, and Quinn soon realizes that committing murder is like eating potato chips. Are the notes coming from Mason? Tawny? The chauffeur, who keeps hovering around the mailbox? Discontented stepdaughter Sandra Dee? Her fiance, who has a score to settle with the Cabot family? Before you know it, you're knee-deep in intrigue.

From the Vaults: 'The Shop Around the Corner' (1940)

Why, it's another movie by Ernst Lubitsch! And it could not be more different from the stately silent film we looked at last week. (My God, it's almost like this was planned.)

A classic comedy of manners, "The Shop Around the Corner" got a boost in 1998 when "You've Got Mail" came out; it had also been remade in 1949 as the musical "In The Good Old Summertime" with Judy Garland (and a 3-year-old Liza Minnelli). Timeless as the theme may be, it works really well as a period piece. Shops like this just don't exist anymore.

James Stewart plays Alfred, top salesman at a retail shop in Budapest, and Maureen Sullavan is new hire Klara. They get off on the wrong foot and spend most of the movie arguing with each other, both unaware that they're also anonymous pen pals. For both of them, life pretty much revolves around the shop, and both find their letters a welcome escape into a higher realm of thought -- and eventually into love!

Really though this is much more of a workplace story than a romance. From the opening scene, when all the shop employees filter in to start the day, the movie's often an ensemble piece. Stewart's Alfred is the only person who's not afraid of boss man Matuschek (Frank Morgan), and a lot of scenes hinge on the different ways the employees try to ingratiate themselves to their boss. Any modern worker can relate, although the top-top boss is more likely to be in a city across the country than an office right off the sales floor. There's also frequent and noisy comic relief provided by errand boy Pepi (William Tracy).

Once Stewart and Sullavan get going, their snippy exchanges become the movie's best scenes. My favorites are her hiring scene and another bit in a storage room as she works up to asking for some time off -- both scenes start off with a tone of friendly detachment and then gradually dissolve into icy rancor. I love how they coldly address each other as "Miss Novak" and "Mr. Kralik." Over time, though, they develop a grudging respect for each other.

Before the jump here, I just have to warn you people that there's a still from one of the final frames toward the bottom there and, well, if you got at all freaked out by Cary Grant dressed as Santa Claus, you might want to brace yourselves. Life is not always pretty, and neither are the movies. OK, here we go.

From the Vaults: 'Anna Boleyn' (1920)

There's not much reason to watch Ernst Lubitsch's silent historical epic "Anna Boleyn" (which Netflix informs me is also called "Deception"), unless you're, say, a movie blogger who has set herself the cussed task of watching only films from 1920, 1940, 1960 and 1980. Fortunately for you, I am just such a blogger, and so I have watched this film so that you do not have to!

It's not that it's bad by any means; for 1920, the sets and costumes are pretty impressive. Five minutes in, I was waving a pizza slice around and expostulating to the cats, "Look at that crowd shot! All these people in costume! This thing must have cost a fortune!" And the acting is often hammy but fun, and it fits the material. Also, a wench jumps out of a cake! It's just that the thing is so long. Run time is about two hours, but it feels longer.

Part of the problem is that you already know the story, although the tragedy's been hepped up until it feels like "Tess of the d'Urbervilles." Young Anna (German for "Anne," I guess) Boleyn arrives from France to stay with her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk (Ludwig Hartau), and be a lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon. She's excited to meet the queen and also to be reunited with her boyfriend, megacutie Sir Henry Norris (Paul Hartmann).

Instead, she catches the roving eye of big gross King Henry VIII (Emil Jannings, clearly enjoying himself tremendously). He openly chases Anna around, devastating Catherine (the lusciously named Hedwig Pauly-Winterstein) and shattering Anna's relationship with Sir Henry. Anna ends up married to the man she loathes, and we all know how that goes for her.

Paul Coates, Aug. 24, 1960

Aug. 24, 1960: The Mirror reports a shouting match between Mayor Norris Poulson and Police Chief William H. Parker over a proposed police cadet program. It sounds like a great item, but alas, so many stories and only one Larry Harnisch, who is focused on the 1910 bombing of The Times these days. Paul Coates follows up on a story about Emery Newbern, “the Perry Mason of the drunk tank.”

From the Vaults: 'Friday the 13th' (1980)

*claps hands to face, shakes feathered hair, screams*

I'm sorry! I meant to do this last week. Larry pitched this idea when he first started running posts from 1980, and I thought "ooh, there's a Friday the 13th in August" and then I didn't think about it again until, well, last Friday morning, when my "House of Usher" post had just gone live. Well... "Friday the 13th" itself was released on May 9, 1980, so at least there is precedence for not getting the date quite right. That counts... right? ....

Besides, there's no actual mention of Friday the 13th in the movie. It's given as the date for much of the action, but nobody ever says "Boy, I sure hate Friday the 13th! Things always get crazy!" or anything like that. This is fitting; the movie intentionally follows the template of the tremendously successful "Halloween" (1978), which was originally titled "The Babysitter Murders" and involves the holiday largely as window dressing. In the coming years "My Bloody Valentine" (1981) and "April Fool's Day" (1986) would treat their own holiday themes much more seriously. For the original F13, though, it's just all about the camp counselors.

And what counselors they are! Not a single camper is to be seen in this film, unless you count the drowning Jason (was he a camper or just an employee's kid that nobody was really in charge of?) shown in flashback. This film is concerned about the counselors, thank you, the nubile teenagers in high-waisted shorts and crisp white panties. This film clearly knows which side its bread is buttered on! All the action takes place on the day before Camp Crystal Lake is to open, so at least there's a good reason: the story centers on the counselors who are helping get the camp ready. Sadly for them, that will never happen.

From the Vaults: 'House of Usher' (1960)

People with funeral fetishes, I have got the movie for you, and it is Roger Corman's "House of Usher." (Yes, I am beaming affectionately at you, my dear goth friends.) The first in a rash of Corman films taken from titles by Edgar Allan Poe, "Usher" is one of the most faithful that I have seen and also, alas, just about the least fun. But if you have a thing for funerals, it's great! And for the rest of us, there's Vincent Price in a blond wig.

The plot makes a bit free with Poe's story, although it's nothing like the deranged embellishments of, say, "The Raven," in which Vincent Price and Boris Karloff cast spells on each other over dinner while Peter Lorre flaps around in a man-sized raven suit. In "The Fall of the House of Usher," an unnamed friend comes to visit Roderick Usher in his big creepy old family mansion; Roderick's sister Madeline swans around being sickly and eventually gets buried alive. That's pretty much the plot here, except that the friend has been named Philip Winthrop and he arrives as Madeline's fiance. It's a short story (my copy runs 19 pages) so there's a lot of standing around.

But hey, we're standing around with Vincent Price, and he's got a blond wig on! Check him out after the jump: He looks like Captain Von Trapp. Price plays Roderick Usher, who is not at all happy to see Winthrop (Mark Damon) on his doorstep. The "Winthrop, you must leave!" starts right off the bat. But apparently Winthrop met Madeline (Myrna Fahey) back in Boston and got engaged to her and is determined to visit her at home, even though all she does is put on nightgowns and swan around being sickly. Winthrop mostly interacts with the hostile Roderick and with the butler, Bristol (Harry Ellerbe), who is useful for providing expository details such as the family inclination toward catalepsy.

From the Vaults: 'My Favorite Wife' (1940)

Returning to earlier themes of Cary Grant and wife-swapping, this week we have "My Favorite Wife," a screwball comedy. As usual with this genre, your mood will determine whether you find the antics hilarious or simply trying. So if you are at all tired or cranky, maybe watch a nice slasher film instead and save this one for a night you're feeling more mellow. But if you're in the mood, it's just peachy.

Grant plays Nick, a widower who lost his first wife, Ellen (Irene Dunne), to a shipwreck, and is about to marry Bianca (Gail Patrick) when suddenly Ellen reappears -- not dead after all! (Sorry, this is not one of those romantic zombie comedies.) This plot will be dear to anyone who has ever watched a soap opera, and I know there are more of you out there than you will ever let on. I myself fondly remember the "Sunset Beach" episode when Ben was about to marry Meg but then Maria washed ashore from the desert island where she'd been shipwrecked...

Anyway, it's certainly a situation that puts the husband in a bind, and Grant does his usual share of bugging his eyes and then debonairly trying to smooth things over. He's very charming, of course, and he makes it immediately clear what Nick wants to do: he loves Ellen, and he wants to call things off with Bianca. But he just -- can't -- bring -- himself -- to do it! If he could, the movie would be 10 minutes long. I got pretty tired though of watching him dither and fuss and placate Bianca and then turn around and placate Ellen. When he finally gets punched in the face, it's almost too late to be satisfying.

 

From the Vaults: 'The Watcher in the Woods' (1980)

Well, "Watcher in the Woods"  is certainly an odd film. Starring Bette Davis and the radiant, fresh-off-of-"Ice Castles" Lynn-Holly Johnson, it hails from an era of vaguely dark and weird Disney films: "The Black Hole" had come out the previous year, and a couple years later they'd release a little something called "Tron." There's also "Something Wicked This Way Comes" (1983) and "Escape to Witch Mountain" (1975) -- it's probably too much to call these movies edgy, exactly, but they're a far cry from "The Santa Clause" and "Beverly Hills Chihuahua."

I guess the idea was to appeal to adolescents; the tone of these older movies tends to veer toward the dark and creepy without having there really be a lot of actual nastiness. "Watcher" certainly sets up with the evil fairy-tale tropes, but Bette Davis turns out to be a nice old mom instead of a witch, and the monster in the woods (spoiler) is just a benign force that's lost its way. Whew! We will sleep well tonight.

Lynn-Holly (I do love a girl with two first names) arrives with her parents and little sister at the big country house they're renting in Britain. Creepy old Mrs. Aylworth (Davis), the landlady, rents them the place because Lynn-Holly's Jan reminds her of her own daughter, who disappeared 30 years ago. "Are you kind?" Mrs. A. demands of Jan. "Are you sensitive? Do you... sense things?"

Jan does, in fact. As soon as she walks in the house, she's seeing things and moaning, "Something awful happened here. I can feel it. Something awful." She has visions of a blindfolded girl, and of triangles and circles and flashes of unexplained light in the woods. This movie gets tons of mileage out of Jan sensing things. Meanwhile, little sister Ellie is hearing things: whispers, disembodied voices singing songs. What's going on?

From the Vaults: 'Village of the Damned' (1960)

All I knew about this movie going in was that it had been remade with Mark Hamill in 1995 (the remake also starred Christopher Reeve and Kirstie Alley, and was respectably directed by John Carpenter, but in 1995 all my friends and I cared about was Mark Hamill). I had the impression that the whole idea of a town full of evil kids was fairly corny. I did not expect the original "Village of the Damned" to be so down-to-earth, and so very unsettling.

Things begin quietly -- very quietly -- as everyone in the village of Midwich, England, suddenly and collectively passes out one afternoon. Tractors crash into trees, record players run down, bathtubs overflow, irons burn holes in shirts ... even the animals are out cold. Britain's military rolls in and is standing there wondering what to do when suddenly everyone in Midwich wakes up again. There seem to be no ill effects (well, except for the poor guy who fell asleep flying a plane).

And then, two months later, all the Midwich women of childbearing age realize they're pregnant.

The movie's adapted from "The Midwich Cuckoos," a novel by John Wyndham -- who also wrote the wonderful "Day of the Triffids," another tale of mayhem lurking just beneath the peaceful British countryside. Here the action moves at a fairly tranquil pace, introducing an array of mostly likable, relateable characters inhabiting Midwich.

Our heroes are scientist Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders) and his wife, Anthea (Barbara Shelley), with Anthea's brother Alan (Michael Gwynn) providing a military connection. After the mass loss of consciousness, everyone pretty much just dusts themselves off and says "Mustn't grumble" and gets back to work.

From the Vaults: 'Pride and Prejudice' (1940)

How can you possibly go wrong with Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy? The sad truth is that you can. Mr. Darcy isn't hard to get right, in my opinion -- all he has to do is be terribly rude -- but most adaptations of "Pride and Prejudice" balk at having the leading man be terribly rude. This was perhaps understandable in 1940, when there were very decided expectations for what a studio film should be, particularly a costume drama getting billed as a comedy -- I mean, check out that poster!

And really, for what it is, this movie's a fair amount of fun. It runs amok with Jane Austen's novel, but that's to be expected; I have no intrinsic problem with Regency heroines in pre-Civil War hoop skirts, or even with Lady Catherine being transformed into a good guy. It's hard to be angry with such a relentlessly good-natured movie.

The plot, for the uninitiated: Witty, strong-willed Elizabeth Bennet meets the dashing, stuck-up Mr. Darcy at a dance and takes an instant dislike to him. Meanwhile, Elizabeth's ditzy mother attempts to get Elizabeth and her four sisters married well, because the girls don't stand to inherit any money and will be penniless without husbands. (You would never know, to look at the girls' lavish hoop skirts and well-appointed mansion, that they were in any financial distress, but never mind.) Elizabeth and Darcy argue, misunderstand each other and finally end up irresistibly in love. Swoon! If only the way they got there were more satisfying.

Most of the cast here is fab. Greer Garson is a dream as Elizabeth: sly, intelligent, warmly affectionate, and funny. You can see why Darcy falls for her. I also liked Maureen O'Sullivan as luminous older sister Jane, who's gentle and kind without ever crossing the line into cloying. Karen Morley is too achingly beautiful to be plain Charlotte Lucas, and the character is sadly underdrawn here, but Morley does a nice job with what she's got.

From the Vaults: 'The Penalty' (1920)

Here's an experiment for you long-suffering readers: Take your legs and fold them underneath you, so you're sitting on your feet. How's that feel?

Now, keeping your feet where they are, hop down on the floor and walk around on your knees. Hey, nicely done! See that fireman's pole over there? Just walk over there on your knees and slide down it, keeping your feet doubled back. Be sure to land on your knees: no cheating. Good work! How's everyone feeling?

It's hard to watch Lon Chaney in "The Penalty" without thinking along these lines. The man famous for playing grotesque, often mutilated characters here plays double amputee Blizzard, whose legs were mistakenly removed above the knee when he was a lad.

For the role Chaney had his legs bound and walked around on his knees in a pair of leather stumps, a long overcoat concealing his feet behind his back. This is about a 90-minute movie and he's in most of it, stumps and all; his performance is a major feat of endurance. It looks painful. It must have been agonizing.

Chaney's Blizzard is tortured in more ways than one: as a tyke, he wakes after surgery to overhear his amputator, Dr. Ferris (Charles Clary), getting reamed by a boss-type doctor: "You should not have amputated! You've mangled this poor child for life... I shall lie for you." (Just imagine for a second being Dr. Ferris here. It's his first serious case, and he seems to feel dreadful. You'd think he'd need years of therapy! But Dr. Ferris pushes forward into a distinguished medical career, so -- go him, I guess.)