A WOMAN OF EXPERIENCE (1931)

It's Vienna, 1914, just after the declaration of war. We follow the path of a paper flier, asking for women to do their part in the war effort, blowing down a busy street and landing at the feet of Elsa (Helen Twelvetrees), a lowly prostitute. Wanting to do her patriotic duty, she applies for hospital work, but is told a woman of her character—or lack thereof—isn't wanted. But Capt. Muller sees her and thinks she might do for some potentially dangerous spy work; after all, as he tells her, she is alone and doesn't believe in God, so what does she have to lose? Muller and Major Schmidt assign her to cozy up to (i.e., become the mistress of) Otto (Lew Cody), an Austrian captain who may be a traitor. But the night she starts flirting with Otto, she also runs into (literally, in the street into his carriage) the handsome naval officer Karl (William Bakewell). The next night, she stands Otto up to spend the night with Karl—and the next night, and the next night.  Soon, it gets back to Schmidt that Elsa is shirking her duty and she gets a gentle reminder about whom she's supposed to be sleeping with. Elsa talks Karl into volunteering for submarine duty, clearing the way to get herself back into the arms of Otto, which she does. Can she catch the spy in the act of spying? And if so, can she still win back the man she loves?

This melodrama is notable mostly for an interesting visual style from director Harry Joe Brown, beginning with the unusual opening sequence of the piece of paper in the breeze. A scene at a party features the camera zooming up through a line of scantily-clad dancing women. The accident that brings Elsa and Karl together is poorly staged but most of the film looks good. I've never found Twelvetrees to be a particularly effective actress and she is similarly bland here. Her leading men, especially the very handsome Bakewell (pictured with Twelvetrees), are better, as are C. Henry Gordon and H.B. Warner as the spymasters, and Zasu Pitts lends her comedic talents to the supporting role of Elsa's maid. Though this was produced in the pre-Code era, and the title character's profession is made fairly clear, her path to redemption (love of a good man and/or death) is very much an element of Production Code films. [TCM]

TARZAN IN ISTANBUL (1952)

Here's an oddity: a Tarzan movie made in Turkey, and outside the constraints of copyright. Years ago, a man and his family were on safari in Africa and found a treasure chest full of diamonds which they hid on Death Mountain so they could come back and claim it. But a tribe of vicious natives slaughtered the mother and father, though the young son escaped into the jungle. Now, an adventurer named Tekin has found the skeleton of the man, with notes and a map showing the location of the treasure. He goes back to Istanbul, contacts the man's brother Camil, and rounds up a party to retrieve the diamonds.  Tekin and Camil are accompanied by the pilot Tevik, his female assistant Netzla, her goofy friend Aziz, and a guide named Kundo. Though they all seem friendly enough, some tensions are established: Tevik is interested in Netzla though she doesn't return his interest, and Kundo is scheming with his buddies (who are following the expedition in secret) to get hold of some of the treasure for themselves. When a lion menaces Netzla, Tarzan (the lost boy in the jungle grown up) comes swinging in to save her. Camil figures out that Tarzan is his nephew, so he insists on giving the jungle man a share in the diamonds. This does not sit well with Kundo who, when they find the diamonds, tries to take them all. Tarzan, however, has a say in the expedition's outcome, as does that vicious native tribe that killed off Tarzan's parents.

This sticks close to the Hollywood template for a 40s-50s Tarzan movie and in fact actually improves on at least one thing: the stock jungle footage matches up much better with the studio-shot footage, partly because the action was filmed on location—in the Belgrad Forest in Turkey—rather than on a set. The acting is about on a par with Hollywood B-acting, and Tarzan (Tamer Balci) himself fits in nicely with the others who played the Lord of the Apes (Johnny Weissmuller, Buster Crabbe, Gordon Scott, etc.). The usual antics are present—Tarzan fights a lion, wrestles a crocodile, horses around with a chimp, yells for his animal friends (using the original Johnny Weissmuller yell), and saves the white woman from danger. Aziz provides comic relief, and fewer of the jungle interlopers survive than usual. The title is misleading in that we never actually see Tarzan in Istanbul—in the last minutes of the film, Tarzan is seen accompanying the survivors on a ship approaching the city but we never see him land. The print I saw on Amazon streaming was in terrible shape, with lots of splices and much pixilation, but apparently it has been issued in a cleaned-up state on Blu-Ray. An interesting novelty. [Amazon]

PAINTING THE CLOUDS WITH SUNSHINE (1951)

In this variation on the Gold Diggers movies of the 30s (with a hint of Betty Grable's MOON OVER MIAMI), three showgirls (Virginia Mayo, Lucille Norman and Virginia Gibson) head for their next gig in Las Vegas and decide to get serious about landing rich husbands. Norman still holds a torch for Dennis Morgan whom she's left back in Hollywood because his gambling has become a problem. Handsome dancer Gene Nelson distracts Norman, but Gibson secretly pines for Nelson. But Nelson has a secret: he's from a rich banking family. When his uncle (Tom Conway) finds out that Nelson is cavorting with gold diggers, he heads to Vegas to break things up. Finding this out, the girls try to spruce themselves up to seem above reproach, but a case of mistaken identity has Mayo assume that Conway is actually an interior decorator come to help them look good, and Conway winds up falling for Mayo. Meanwhile, Morgan sneaks into Vegas hoping to patch things up with Norman. This colorful musical looks good, and there are some good dancing scenes, mostly involving Nelson, but the narrative has outworn its welcome over the years and not much has been done to shake it up. Norman and Gibson are serviceable, and poor Dennis Morgan, though top billed, really has a supporting role; it's Nelson and Mayo who star—and both shine. A subplot involving S.Z. Sakall as a hotel owner having financial troubles and Wallace Ford (unrecognizable under grizzled "old prospector" makeup) as a man who adds to those problems is silly and bogs down any energy the main plot builds up. A must for fans of Nelson and Mayo, a so-so way to pass the time for others. Pictured above are Conway, Nelson and Mayo. [TCM]

THE SKY'S THE LIMIT (1943)

In an opening sequence so perfunctory that I assumed it was a dream, we see Fred Astaire as a WWII fighter pilot with the Flying Tigers in China. On a 10-day promotional trip around the country before they head back to the front, Astaire, tired of not enjoying his time off, slips off the train out West somewhere, buys some cowboy clothes, and heads off to Manhattan for some fun. Looking out of place at a high-class club, Astaire is attracted to Joan Leslie, a society page photographer (who sings in clubs on occasion) who is chomping at the bit to do something more important for the war effort. He gets her attention by doing what we would call "photobombing" her attempts to snap celebrities. When that doesn't work, he walks her home that night, takes a room in her apartment building, and sneaks into her kitchen to make her breakfast the next morning; in other words, he resorts to what we would stalking—though because he's charming and she's attractive, we (and she) are supposed to find the situation amusing. And eventually, she does. But because he keeps his war hero status secret, she thinks he's unemployed and starts trying to get him a job. And there's the little matter of her boss (Robert Benchley) who has flirted with her for years.

I had avoided this one for years because of its lukewarm reputation. I'm not sorry I saw it, but it is, in fact, one of the weaker Astaire movies. I can only really recommend it for one reason: a great Astaire solo number that I'd never even seen excerpted before. He does a drunken dance to "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)" that ranks among his best. He takes the song at a surprisingly jaunty clip, and the climax, in which he jumps up on a bar and smashes glasses, bottles and mirrors, may have inspired Michael Jackson to take dancing destruction even further in the (suppressed) ending to his video for "Black and White." Otherwise, I found it difficult to find his stalking funny, and he and Leslie don’t have much chemistry. Joan Leslie has her fans, but I rarely find her more than adequate. The usually reliable Robert Benchley doesn't even get to provide much fun here. Robert Ryan plays a pilot buddy of Astaire's. There is one interesting element added to the mix: name-dropping. Astaire rhymes "Shining hour" with "Mischa Auer," refers to a celeb photo caption as saying "Ginger Rogers and friend," and later mentions James Cagney and Rita Hayworth. [TCM]

SING, YOU SINNERS (1938)

The Beebe family is just your run-of-the-mill small town family with a mom and her three sons. But two of her boys are grown men—Dave (Fred MacMurray) has a steady job and a steady girlfriend whom he'd like to marry, but he wants to wait until brother Joe (Bing Crosby) makes something of himself before he moves out and leaves his mom and his 12-year-old brother Mike (Donald O’Connor) at the mercies of Joe's lackadaisical ways. The three boys work nights as a singing group at a restaurant, but Joe can't seem to hold down a reliable job. Dave makes Joe feel bad enough that he leaves home and heads out to California looking for a sure thing. Some money won at gambling gets him a swap shop. Thinking his business is a keeper, he sends for Ma and Mike to join him. When Dave and his girl (Ellen Drew) visit, they discover that his business is already a bust: he's sold it to buy a racehorse. So Dave pitches in to save Joe's butt one more time. Just when it looks like the horse, named Uncle Gus, might pay off, gamblers pay little Mike, who is serving as their jockey, to throw the race. Joe tells him not to, and in fact Uncle Gus wins. A scene of fisticuffs with the bad guys ensues, but since this is a comedy, there's a happy ending for the Beebe family.

A pleasant family movie, a little rowdier than your Andy Hardy type of film, this was interesting for me because of the brotherly chemistry between Crosby and MacMurray. In fact, Crosby feels a little off here, in sleepwalking mode on occasion, but also because his character is not particularly likeable, even at the end, and MacMurray and the young O'Connor carry much of the movie and provide most of the easy charm that would come from Bing. Elizabeth Patterson, a workhouse supporting actor who usually played spinsters or cranky aunts gets a bigger role here than usual as the mother and does a nice job. The brothers' musical numbers are fun, and one of Bing's big 30s hits, "I've Got a Pocketful of Dreams," is performed a couple of times. "Small Fry" is an odd one, with the three guys dressed as a poor Southern family. From my 21st century perch, it was amusing to hear Crosby refer to "junk in the trunk," meaning literally, he put a bunch of (rummage sale) junk in the trunk of his car. The ending feels rushed, but otherwise, a nice easy escapist movie. [TCM]

ZETA ONE (1969)

aka THE LOVE FACTOR

I warn you that this summary will not make much sense. This film wants to be three things: a James Bond spoof, a sci-fi movie, and soft-core porn, but it doesn't really work on any of those levels. It's very bad, almost amateurish at times, but for that reason, it's sort of fun to watch if you're in an MST3K mood. Secret agent James Word (Robin Hawdon), in a very mod zippered black shirt and thin mustache, arrives home after a mission to find a sexy blonde woman named Ann (Yutte Stensgaard) waiting for him. She claims to have been sent by his bosses to debrief him, though he's not sure she's being upfront. They play an excruciatingly long game of strip poker, eventually climb into bed (where he is, I assume, literally debriefed) and he tells her about his last mission: tracking down a gang of often-naked, often-large breasted women from the planet Angvia (get it?) who need to kidnap Earth women to keep the population growing. Another man (James Robertson Justice, who seems quite embarrassed to be present) and his thugs (including the fey Charles Hawtrey, a famous British comedian known for his appearances in the "Carry On" film series) are also following these women, as is some handsome guy in glasses who vanishes from the film after his two short scenes. After this situation is set up, things stop making narrative sense. Justice and his men torture a nude woman, we watch a couple of strippers at work, and 50s starlet Dawn Addams plays Zeta, the head of the Angvians who gives orders from a vaguely defined, colorful room (which reminded me of the setting from ZARDOZ where Sean Connery is tortured, or whatever happens to him). In the exciting finale, a horde of women wearing only string bikini bottoms and dark purple pasties run around a park zapping men unconscious with bizarre arm movements.  The movie ends (I think, but I'm not sure) with Ann turning out to be an Angvian, and she enlists James to be a stud to all the Angvian women. Lying in Arabian Nights pleasure in a satin bathrobe, surrounded by buxom women, he looks happy but plumb tuckered out in the final fade.

This film is based on a Barbarella-like SF serial that ran in something called Zeta Magazine; it's difficult to find much information about this, though cover images from the magazine do come up in Google searches. My theory about what happened: Tigon, a short-lived British studio mostly known for low budget horror movies, put this into production as a spy spoof with a sci-fi angle. But the spy comedy, which was a popular niche genre in the mid-60s, was probably dying on the vine by 1969, so they turned it into a sex farce, or at least threw in a lot of tits. At least once, we see full frontal female nudity as well, though of course, the male never gets naked—though he is shirtless on occasion. I also believe that the ridiculously long—almost 20 minutes—opening, in which Hawdon and Stensgaard do work up a little physical chemistry, came about because the producers realized that their film, after editing, came out to barely an hour, so they padded it out with the poker game, pushing the balance of the movie toward sex rather than spy or SF. Still, there are some pleasures to be had here, even if the viewer is not an admirer of the female form:  it's pop-art colorful; there are a few chuckles, particularly in the scene with a mean-spirited talking elevator; it has a wild theme song; I loved the set for the "self-revelation room," even though it consists solely of aluminum foil with psychedelic colors projected on it. I must admit the reason I watched this was that I had just seen WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH and had enjoyed seeing the handsome Robin Hawdon prancing around in a loincloth. He's not quite as appealing here, and soon he left the business to write plays and novels. Can I recommend this? Not really, because today, teens, frat boys and dirty old men have lots of arousing options other than a low-budget titty movie from the 60s. But I'm not sorry I watched it. [Netflix streaming]

WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH (1970)

Hammer had a big hit with the caveman/dinosaur flick ONE MILLION YEARS BC, itself based on a 1940 movie, so they went back to the caves for this sequel of sorts, but the absence of Raquel Welch hurt the film's prospects, though Veronica Vetri, outfitted like Welch in a primitive animal-skin bikini, gives it her best. The sun-worshipping Rock Tribe is in the middle of sacrificing some buxom blondes when the moon makes its first appearance in the sky, throwing all into chaos. Sanna (Vetri), one of the blondes, manages to escape into the sea and is rescued by Tara (Robin Hawdon), a handsome fisherman from the Sand Tribe. He takes her back with him but the group—which has its own share of buxom, bikinied women—isn't crazy about her, believing she somehow caused the disruption in the sky caused by the moon, so she has to live more or less in exile, though Tara visits her frequently. She comes to be buddies with a baby dinosaur, though all the tribes live in danger of dinosaur attacks—not to mention a giant crab! In the end, a tidal wave sorts everyone out. As in ONE MILLION YEARS BC, there is no real dialogue here, just an occasional spurt of primitive caveman jargon (you'll get really tired of hearing "Akita!"), and the plot is barely present, despite being based on a story treatment by J.G. Ballard. But the stop-motion effects, supervised by Jim Danforth (who went on to have a long career in special effects), are on a par with the best of FX master Ray Harryhausen; these scenes are what make the movie watchable. Well, that and the physical charms of Vetri and Hawdon. The two have a fairly active sex scene, Vetri bares her breasts at least once, and I quite enjoyed the loinclothed Hawdon. There's also a jealous Sand Tribe woman who has it in for Sanna even more than the rest of them. A killer snake and a man-eating plant also cause problems for the skimply-dressed Sanna. The problem of the co-existence of dinosaurs and humans is, for me, a non-issue in these movies, despite the fuss that some critics make. This is a decent "turn off your mind, leave your libido running at half-speed, and enjoy" flick.  [Blu-Ray]

MIDNIGHT MANHUNT (1945)

Jelke (George Zucco) goes into a fleabag hotel, skulks around a bit, then enters Joe Wells' room, shooting him and stealing a portfolio of gems worth a million dollars. Jelke leaves but Joe, still clinging to life, drags himself out of the hotel to the alley behind the Last Gangster Wax Museum and dies there, leaving a trail of blood. A cop named Murphy finds the body—Joe was a notorious crook who hadn't been seen for five years and was presumed dead—and calls his precinct, but when he goes back to get Joe, the body is gone. Reporter Sue Gallagher (Ann Savage) has found the body and props it up in a poker game display in the museum, hoping to keep Joe from the cops until she has time to enter an exclusive story for her paper. Also on the scene: Mr. Miggs, the owner of the museum; Clutch, his malapropism-inclined assistant; and Pete Willis (William Gargan, pictured), a rival reporter who can't decide whether to try and outsmart Sue or help her with her story—and win her heart while he's at it.

This B-thriller has a very cheap look but the plot (a corpse that keeps disappearing and appearing) is a little ahead of its time, and the acting is decent all around. The all-in-one-night setting gives it a pleasing unity even if some of the antics involving the body (which we rarely see) are unmotivated. Gargan and Savage are a nice lead duo though the romance element is lacking. Zucco doesn't get much to do but I always like seeing him. Surprisingly, I liked eternal Bowery Boy Leo Gorcey as Clutch—he handled his wordplay well: when someone needs glasses, he says, "I'd advise you to see an optimist"; he wants the museum patrons to "get proper enumeration for their money"; most politically incorrectly, he says of a woman who has gone to bed, "She's retarded for the evening." A solid hour of entertainment for fans of second-feature flicks. [YouTube]