Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Petrified Forest Starring Humphrey Bogart

This 1936 film starring Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart was based on a play in which Bogart starred. Bogart's portrayal of the gangster Duke Mantee, who was based on John Dillinger, is fun to watch and, for me, the high point of the movie. It is shot like a play with most of the action taking place inside the roadside diner in northern Arizona near the "petrified forest." Bette Davis does all right as the diner owner's starry-eyed daughter who falls in love with Leslie Howard, a vagabond who drops by for a meal. The dialogue is interesting, especially between Bogart and Howard. This movie was Bogart's breakout role which is the main reason I've always wanted to see The Petrified Forest. We can be very glad Howard insisted that Bogart got the role. IMDb.com gives it 7.7/10.0, and I'd agree with that score.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: Beat the Devil Starring Humphrey Bogart

This 1953 film is an entertaining hodge-podge starring Bogie with Robert Morley, Peter Lorre, Jennifer Jones, and Gina Lollobrigida. John Huston directed and wrote the script with some help from Truman Capote. For the most part, I enjoyed watching Beat the Devil. Bogie delivers some snarky and hardboiled lines of dialogue. Everything is played with tongue-in-cheek, so I suppose it's a parody of a sort. The plot is pretty loose, and everybody seemed to be having a good time making the film. Bogie made it through his Santana Productions. I read where he didn't particularly like it, probably because he lost money on the venture. Maybe that's why it is in the public domain now. Peter Lorre as Julius O'Hara, one of the four crooks Bogie is in league with, is funny. IMDb.com rates Best the Devil as 6.6. I don't think I'd watch Beat the Devil again, but it was fun to see Bogie in another movie, and his fans shouldn't be disappointed.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Face Behind the Mask (Recommended)

Every once in a blue moon, I happen across a forgotten gem of a film noir. It happens so rarely that it is all the sweeter when it does occur. Such is the case with The Face Behind the Mask which I'd never heard of until I watched it. I'll give it to you straight: it's easily the best film noir I've watched so far this year. Maybe it even falls in the Top Twenty of All Time, if I had to compile such a ranking.

In a rare film noir (or at least in the ones that I've ever viewed), Peter Lorre plays the lead. The plot is straightforward enough. Janos Szaby (Peter Lorre) arrives in New York City as an eager, optimistic Hungarian immigrant with watchmaking skills. His face is then disfigured in a hotel fire, and he turns bitter.

Lorre does an amazing job of changing his character's profile. He turns ruthless and takes to a life of crime, robbing banks and making jewelry heists. He pays a plastic surgeon to create him a strange rubber mask to hide his burn-scarred face. Lorre must have had a good make-up man because he looks odd wearing his mask.

Later, he bumps into Helen Williams (Evelyn Keyes) who is a blind bead-stringer. Since she can't see his face, they fall in love. Happy once again, Janos decides to quit his old gang, but they have other ideas despite his plans to marry Helen. I immensely enjoyed watching the versatile and talented Lorre until the film's memorable ending that is a slice of pure noir. I wish Lorre made other first-rate movies like The Face Behind the Mask. But then my watching this one wouldn't have been as nearly as much fun. My only regret is I can't see it for the first time again. Recommended.

My New Isabel and Alma Trumbo Cozy Mystery THE LADYBUG SONG Is Out

Back in the years before the economy tanked, I used to write and sell my stories to the Dorchester Media ladies confessional magazines (TRUE STORY). About the same time, I wrote a cozy mystery series featuring a pair of senior sleuth sisters, Isabel and Alma Trumbo. The first title [book:Quiet Anchorage|10530870] (2011) sold well enough for me to write and publish a second title, [book:The Cashmere Shroud|18101016] (2013). Now THE LADYBUG SONG is out as a Kindle release. I've enjoyed spending time with Isabel and Alma who are based, in part, on my two grand aunts who are no longer with us. I don't know if either of them was an amateur sleuth, but Isabel had a subscription to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. She passed on her old copies  to me for my reading enjoyment. I can remember my reading EQMM during my summer vacations from school. The added bonus for me is the small town setting of Quiet Anchorage, Virginia, where the Trumbo sisters live and sleuth. Please consider adding THE LADYBUG SONG to your summer reading list.

Book Description:
Phyllis Garner refuses to believe her best friend Ladybug Miles’ death is an accidental drowning in the local Coronet River. Phyllis thinks it was murder and asks her friends Isabel and Alma Trumbo to do their talented snooping in small town Quiet Anchorage to root out the truth of what happened and bring the guilty killer to justice. Isabel and Alma call on their own assistants, including twentysomething Sammi Jo and The Three Musketeers (Ossie, Blue, and Willie) to help with the investigation. For the dog lovers, Isabel and Alma’s pooch Petey Samson plays an instrumental role in solving the murder mystery. This third title in the popular Isabel and Alma Trumbo Cozy Mystery Series delivers the usual quaint small town setting, gentle humor, and good-hearted but dogged amateur lady sleuths.

Click here to go to Kindle page for The Ladybug Song. 

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: "The Dead Duck Caper" (Sam Spade Radio Show)

I listened to an old radio show, "THE ADVENTURES OF SAM SPADE, DETECTIVE," starring Howard Duff pictured here. This episode, "The Dead Duck Caper," originally ran on CBS (Wildroot Cream Oil was the sponsor) on February 2, 1947. This version was from a vinyl record made by the Armed Forces Radio Services which includes the scratchy background. The baritone Duff sounds like a real-life Spade. The bad guy had a quacky voice like a duck's. I had a little trouble following the plotline perhaps because the recording was so bad. The snappy dialogue and corny narrative were funny. I guess it was closer to being a radio comedy than suspenseful adventure. I recently read a bio. of Hammett, and he wrote a lot of radio scripts, but I don't know if he wrote this particular episode or not. If I run across any other recorded episodes, I might give them a listen like while I am working out.

Current Movie Review: Million Dollar Arm (from Disney)

I don't know when I last watched a Disney movie at the cinema, but I did see Million Dollar Arm with good results. Sports agent J.B. Bernstein plucks a pair of Indian pitching prospects, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, from a reality show competition held in India. Of course, cricket is the most popular sport in India, but J.B. sees a gold mine if he can tap into the billion (that's spelled with a b) people (i.e., customers) living there to start loving baseball by following the careers of his two prize Indian prospects. The only trouble is playing cricket doesn't translate well to playing baseball. J.B. has all sorts of problems when he gets back to the States. Million Dollar Arm is an entertaining, pleasant underdog sports movie that reminded me a little of Jerry Maguire. Alan Arkin, always fun to watch, plays a sports scout. The romance between J.B. and his tenant Brenda, a medical doctor, is a nice subplot. Since this is a Disney picture, there's little or no swearing, violence, sex, etc. I'm a baseball fan, so I was hooked right from the start. You might also find Million Dollar Arm a fun movie to go see.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films: The Great Flamarion Starring Dan Duryea

This offbeat but very entertaining 1945 film noir stars the Austrian actor and silent film director Erich von Stroheim as The Great Flamarion. Stroheim later appeared in a memorable role in the classic film Sunset Boulevard (nominated for Academy Award). Here he is cast as a marksman with a set of fancy pistols in a popular vaudeville act. The married couple Mary Beth Hughes and Dan Duryea also appear in the act where Duryea's main stunt is to avoid getting shot while he's dancing in front of the mirrors. It's all a matter of timing, but Duryea is also a lush, so his timing is sometimes a bit off. Hughes is a fabulous femme fatale who colludes with Flamarion to pull off Duryea's "accidental death" during a show. The reliable Anthony Mann directed this movie. Hughes reminds me of Jane Greer and even resembles her a little. I just saw Hughes in The Lady Confesses, and this is a better film. IMDb.com gives The Great Flamarion a 6.7 rating which sounds about right to me.

Current Film Review: Ida

I wanted to see Million Dollar Arm, but it was cancelled. So, I decided to watch the 2013 Polish drama film Ida directed by Paweł Pawlikowski. The English subtitles are easy to read, so that wasn't any big deal. IMDb.com rates Ida a very good 7.6, so that was good enough recommendation for me. I left the theater glad I went ahead and saw it. The movie setting is the dead of winter in 1962 (though I wonder if the late 1950s is more accurate). The title character IDA is a novice nun a week from taking her vows when the Mother Superior first sends her to see her Aunt Wanda. The horrific family secrets are exposed, and Ida gets a real world education, perhaps more than the Mother Superior had in mind. The film moves along at a deliberate pace, and the dialogue is pretty spare. I grew to like Ida, and I wanted her to get through her travails okay. Ida is a bit different, and a nice change of pace for me. You might like it, too.