The Man Who Turned To Stone (1957) Are those stones in your pocket or are you just happy to see me!

The Man Who Turned To Stone Â (1957) was directed by Leslie or Laszlo Kardos and produced by Sam Katzman. Screenplay by Raymond Marcus, Bernard Gordon.

The cast: Victor Jory, Ann Doran, Charlotte Austin, William Hudson, (Allison Hayes’ louse of a husband in 50Ft Woman)Paul Cavanagh, Jean Willes, and Frederick Ledebur.Incidentally, Hudson’s older brother John was also a louse of a husband in another gem The Screaming Skull(1958), although I recommend the MST3K version too, it’s a hoot!

This is a quirky, outre fun obscure horror film that I simply love. It combines the women in prison thingy with the mad scientist genre. It could even be considered a sci-fi film. It’s very hard to categorize some films because they do cross-pollinate with multiple themes, to me it’s all instant vintage bliss.

The idea of women in captivity isn’t new, and certainly putting them at risk within their confinement creates a very frantic atmosphere. We feel trapped along with them right? So add to that a really tall man in a black suit who looks like pigeons would love to alight upon his shoulders and you get The Man Who Turned To Stone. Naughty girls are put away from society, being experimented on for the purpose of extending the secret of eternal life.

I don’t want to keep harping on this but I do confess, I live with a sociologist and so a lot of her discourse osmosis into my thought processes. Actually viewing films and television, or even reading a good novel has been dramatically transformed because of my exposure to an Academic’s life.

I promise that not all my posts will become didactic or laden with conscientious opining and critical thought.

Sometimes a monster girl just wants to see the giant rubber hand smash through the roadside cafe and grab that cheating lecherous creep of a husband of Allison Hayes and not think of the feminist overtones of a 50 Foot woman enraged. But I digress.

So I just have to say this one thing and then back to the man who could sit in the park and collect pigeon shit all over himself.

The theme of using women in prison is sort of an extension of the confinement of women out in the world who are thought of as captive objects, an archaic tradition of ” a woman’s place is in the home” an institutionalized sort of domestic restraint for some.

I myself find it gratifying to be at home, watching horror and noir films. Playing with my cats and drinking coffee, then do a quick vacuuming and set the crock pot up for 6 hours, chili at 7 pm. Housewifery is nirvana for me.I am merely making an observation about the implications and the allure of the women in prison genre. Also watching a gratuitous girl fight has its fascinations. Guilty as charged!

In typical girls behind bars flicks there’s always the tough one who’s been around longer than mud, and the new fish who comes in and transforms the dynamic with her fresh innocence and naivete eventually helping the other inmates achieve some kind of revelation about life and themselves.

There’s also the stock evil “total institution” figure or figures (a sociological phrase, sorry!) that hovers over the women, exploiting, abusing, and being well, horrible authoritarians, tyrannical Fascist dirtbags on a power trip.

The women in LaSalle Detention Home for “Girls” have been inextricably dying, in a most mysterious way. These are young girls and yet they are suffering heart attacks? This has been going on for 2 years. Over the course of those 2 years, the inmates hear disturbing screams in the middle of the night.

The problem is that there aren’t any people who would care about “bad girls” in jail. They’ve lost all their rights, no one cares about such types, and so it’s a perfect environment to perform experiments on these women because they are a)helpless and b)anonymous. Hidden away from watchful responsible eyes.

And you see the people running the prison aren’t really evil agents of the law, they are actually really really old evil people who do esoteric science and are using the prison as a cover.

Charlotte Austin plays Carol Adams, the social worker who actually does give a damn about the girls. Carol has integrity and wants to help the girls reform and make sure that their living conditions are adequate.

Tracy, the iconic old-timer inmate of the group tells Carol about the suspicious string of “heart attacks”that have occurred over the past 2 years, Carol tries to investigate. This puts Carol in danger because she’s starting to interfere with Dr. Murdock’s (played by Victor Jory) experiments. He and his assistants try to deter Carol at every turn. So Murdock, Mrs.Ford(Ann Doran), and the other scientists start panicking.

No one knows that these people are actually over 200 years old. It’s delicious to see these evil practitioners of eternal life wearing eighteenth-century clothes. Way back in the 1700s they had uncovered a method of prolonging the life force or actually renewing life by transferring energy from one person to another. Something to do with electricity, blood transfusions, and large steel bathtubs.

Not unlike Vampirism, but by sucking the life force out of one body and infusing it into themselves. These scientists have been virtually using the girls to literally feed their years. When one of the girls is chosen to re-energize one of the scientists she dies, and they make it look like a heart attack. These scientists have figured out that the best giver of this life-nurturing force is women in their childbearing years. The jail is full of those.

Thus the reason why Murdock has set up their laboratory in prison for “bad girls” The one problem Murdock and his accomplices face is that if they go too long without sustaining themselves with a new source of energy, their skin becomes as hard as stone, and their hearts pounds so wildly that it’s actually audible, then they die!

This happens to a few of them, and the sound we hear when time runs out is really creepily cool. So is the make-up for the stone skin. Another problem they are faced with is the rocky ghoulish-looking Eric (Frederick Ledebur), a walking, mindless statue who suffered brain damage in their first experiments. It’s curious why they would keep him around for a couple of centuries. Perhaps he made a nice dining room ornament at the annual mad scientist cocktail party. It’s really Eric that gives The Man Who Turned To Stone is creepitude. The way he hulks around the house would give anyone the heebies, even a “bad girl”

Eric is also taking longer and longer to respond to the recharging treatments so they have to up the amount of female sacrifices from the jail pool.

Once one of the girls supposedly commits suicide, Dr Jesse Rogers (Hudson) a psychiatrist with the State Department of Corrections takes Carol’s pleas seriously and tries to help find out what’s been going on at the prison.

Eventually, Carol and Dr. Rogers uncover the secret. Dr Murdock and the others try to kill Rogers and Carol but they fail to do so. Eric is out of control and winds up kidnapping one of the inmates from her bed. After several mishaps, the scientists are vanquished of their nefarious and unholy rituals and their lab is burnt to the ground. And the girls can go back to confinement without Eric lurking about.

-MonsterGirl

The 4D Man (1959)A man in the fourth dimension is indestructible.

4D Man (1959) Directed by Irvin Shortess Yeaworth Jr. and co-produced by Jack H Harris. Screenplay by Cy Chermak. Starring Robert Lansing, Lee Meriwether, James Congdon, Robert Strauss, and a very young Patty Duke. Earlier on Yeaworth and Harris had collaborated on The Blob(1958). The film has elements of the fantastical vivid coloring used in The Blob that gives this film a very comic book tonality. Actually, Jack Harris had promised the lead to Steve McQueen originally, but Harris thought he was such a pain in the ass from his experience with the actor on The Blob, that he didn’t want to work with him again.

Just for the sake of taking me back to Saturday morning schlocktalcular 50s and 60s mad scientist/science gone awry films that entertained me all through those golden afternoons. I offer yet another guilty pleasure film. The 4D Man.

This little multi-dimensional flick also goes by the name Master of Terror and The Evil Force but I’ve always enjoyed it as the 4D guy who can walk through walls and whenever he touches someone, it drains their life force and they age to dust in seconds.

Yeaworth directed this film with a very frenetic energy. It’s actually a very interesting concept if you consider the power to walk through walls could open up oodles of possibilities if used in the right hands of course.

Robert Lansing is scientist Scott Nelson, and his younger brother Tony played by James Congdon, develops a method of penetrating solid matter.

After he blows up the lab where he’s been experimenting with his theories, he goes to big brother for help. Scott helps Tony by procuring an electric motor that activates brain waves causing the forces of mind over matter to truly break through any barrier. Jack Harris‘ production is very slick while Lansing is literally charged with rays from the fourth dimension.

Unfortunately with all stories about the dangers of delving into areas that perhaps shouldn’t be explored hastily, this process winds up using up Scott’s life force and causes him to age rapidly as well as triggers a maniacal strain of homicidal self-preservation, greed all mixed with a little god complex for good measure.

He starts to feed off other people’s life force and ultimately kills them with his touch. Scott is engaged to Lee Meriwether who eventually convinces him to temporarily stop using his power long enough for them to shoot him.

Chic James is the prostitute who withers away as Scott robs her life force.

A similar film of interest is The Projected Man (1966)

Special Note: Jack Harris came up with the idea for a 4D man over lunch while reading a pamphlet on the fourth dimension and the molecular structure of two foreign pieces of matter. The idea is that these molecules could be allowed to interconnect. So if you could put a pencil through a slab of metal,

like in the film, why couldn’t a person walk through a wall? Walking through walls is a novel idea, but he needed to inject the feeling of menace into the plot. That’s when they decided that Lansing’s character would rapidly age and need to regenerate his life force.

The Hideous Sun Demon (1959) Reptilian pants monster by day

Since we’re having a major blizzard here on the eastern seaboard, I thought it appropriate to spread a little sunshine in your day! I’d like to share a film that is a “guilty pleasure” of mine.

I love 1950s sci-fi/ horror. There are some films that share equal parts of the genres. The Hideous Sun Demon is one of those atomic-age scare films.

The Hideous Sun Demon (1959) alternative titles Blood on His Lips, Terror From the Sun(Â more fitting for people who look like worn-out saddles from too much sun worshiping and tanning bedtime), and The Sun Demon. Directed and Produced by Robert Clarke and Screenplay by E.S.Seeley Jr.

Stars Robert Clarke, Patricia Manning, Nan Peterson, and Patrick Whyte. In keeping with the theme of shapes shifting and transformation films such as werewolves and large cat people.

This film is about a reptilian conversion whenever Dr Gilbert McKenna played by director Clarke himself is exposed to the light of day, the sun. Normally films that evoke fear are set in shadowing night, with beasties lurking in the darkness. Sun Demon depicts the horror and fears in broad daylight, the theme of the monster transformed by the moonlight is actually now inverted, to become a tale of fearing the bright landscape of the day.

On a much more subtle level or perhaps not so subtle considering it is well known of Dr McKenna’s drinking problem. the film can be taken as a cautionary tale about addiction. Now, Dr. Gilbert McKenna happens to also be an atomic scientist who deals with the dreaded radioactive materials. So combining this highly dangerous practice with a highly self-destructive habit makes for a disastrous result. Dr. McKenna causes an accident in his lab, which sets off a chain reaction of exposure to a strange kind of radiation exposure. He literally becomes allergic to the sunlight and when at the mercy of the big old fireball in the sky, he becomes a scaly monstrosity.

Trying to help Gil out are his associates Ann Russell played by Patricia Manning and Dr. Frederick Buckell(Patrick Whyte). They insist on Gil staying out of the sunlight until they can find a specialist who can treat him for radiation poisoning. Unfortunately, Gil has a very strong will and drive to do things his own way, after all, he is an addict.

He goes out one evening and finds a nightclub singer Trudy Osborne ( Nan Peterson)and they start up a little fling on the beach, which leaves Gil exposed to the sun the next morning.

Ann is in love with Gil, but Gil doesn’t seem to notice at all. Because Gil is oblivious to Ann’s feelings, he sneaks out while she is taking care of him. He goes back to find the sleazy Trudy and yet again he’s caught out in the sunlight. This time, once he’s transformed into the scaly demon he winds up killing a gangster named Georgia who happens to be Trudy’s ex-boyfriend.

Inevitably Gil is chased by the police and falls to his death from a high tower.

The fact that Gil is a willful participant in turning into this demon, suggests that it is the subject of addiction and choice that the film is relating to us. Gil could have remained inside during the day to protect himself and others from what he might become, but his urges created a compulsion that ultimately was his downfall.

I can’t take credit for the use of the phrase Pants Monster. Here is the link to their hilarious site!

http://pantsmonsters.blogspot.com/

The Unearthly (1957) “Here’s to youth, here’s to eternity” John Carradine the ubiquitous actor

The Unearthly (1957)

The Unearthly was directed by Brooke L Peters (IMDb has the director listed as Boris Petroff) and scripted by Jane Mann and Geoffrey Dennis. The film stars the ubiquitous character actor John Carradine, the sultry Allison Hayes, the mammoth Tor Johnson, Myron Healey, Marilyn Buferd, Arthur Batanides, and Sally Todd.

John Carradine with his characteristic cello-like voice plays Dr. Charles Conway, the archetypal mad scientist who has developed a 17th artificial gland. Conway believes he has discovered the secret to eternal youth and immortality. Dr. Conway revels “I can prolong life for thousands of years, perhaps forever this 17th gland is the secret of youth.”

The Face of Marble (1946) An Odd John Carradine Obscurity with an “Identity Crisis”

The voluptuous Allison Hayes (Attack of The 50 Foot Woman 1958, The Undead ) plays Grace Thomas, a woman who has suffered a nervous breakdown and is brought to Dr. Conway’s house for a rest cure. Grace has been tricked by her doctor, Dr. Loren Wright (Roy Gordon) who’s been working with Conway, by procuring the victims and ensuring they do not have any living family members who can trace them. Dr. Wright slips up when he doesn’t realize that Grace has a father. The plan is to take her coat and handbag and fake her suicide.

Myron Healy is Mark Houston an undercover cop posing as an escaped convict, that Lobo finds lurking on the grounds. Dr. Conway having heard the description of the man threatens to call the police but offers Mark sanctuary because he is a perfect specimen to experiment on. Houston is purposely posing as the escaped murderer in order to infiltrate Conway’s operation.

Tor Johnson as Lobo once again (Bride of The Monster and Plan 9 From Outer Space) is a giant with the mind of a child who is the caretaker, bodyguard, and overall man-servant to Dr. Conway.

Dr. Conway and his icy assistant Sharon Gilcrest (Marilyn Buferd) are experimenting on these human guinea pigs trying to find the secret of eternal youth.

Also, there is the unfortunate Jedrow, stuck in a cataleptic state, with a huge gash in his neck where the 17th gland was implanted. It’s sweet when Lobo washes his face with a wet rag. He somewhat looks like the Man Who Turned To Stone or an extra from Carnival of Souls.

Dr. Conway’s home is a front for his experiments, seemingly a sanatorium for neurotics. While his guests/patients are Danny Green (Arthur Batanides) an edgy drug addict, and Sally Todd is Natalie Anders suffering from chronic sex appeal?

They all think that Conway is actually trying to help them get over whatever affliction they’re supposedly troubled by. Sharon is drugging their milk and secreting them away for the glandular transplants.

Unfortunately, his operations have failed, only creating monstrous and insane mutants that wind up locked away in his basement dungeon.

Sally reads trashy romance novels and flirts with all the men, even Lobo, who mumbles Pretty Girl like a 2-year-old. Danny is a cranky rageaholic whose temper tantrums are irritating.

Mark and Grace discover that Conway has experimented on Natalie turning her into a horrifically scarred version of herself. Together with Danny, they stop Conway’s experiments, but ultimately as is typical it is one of Dr. Conway’s own creations that kills him. And his assistant Sharon is taken away by the police. Grace and Mark go off into the sunset.

Some memorable quotes:

“In science, there have always been some necessary sacrifices”– Dr. Conway
“The unearthlyÂ In science nothing is taken for granted.”-Dr. Conway
“Here’s to youth, here’s to eternity.”
“Alright I wear a leather jacket and I’m not a midget, so what?” -Mark Houston
“I’m a scientist, thinking is my business.”-Dr. Conway

The Maze (1953) Of Highlands and Amphibians

The Maze (1953)William Cameron Menzies directed and was responsible for the art design of The Maze which had its theatrical release in 3D. You’ll actually live it! the film hails.

William Cameron Menzies is known for his visually oneiric classic sci-fi films with dreamlike landscapes.The fantastical (Invaders From Mars)(1953), Things To Come)and the uncreditedÂ director of Duel In The Sun and The Thief of Bagdad, and the epic Gone With The Wind)

Dan Ullman’s screenplay gives us some atmospheric scenes that are compelling to watch and although at times The Maze seems prosaic and downright laughable, It’s been a guilty pleasure of mine for years and I think it’s a charming little chiller from the ’50s due to its originality and Menze’s art design. Plus I enjoy watching Michael Pate, always looking like his underwear is on too tight for his gingerbread men.

Richard Carlson (It Came From Outer Space, Creature From The Black Lagoon)plays Gerald MacTeam, a Baronet and next in line to reign at Craven Castle after his Uncle Samuel dies. The isolated and dreaded Craven Castle has held a mystique about it for centuries, up there in the highlands of Scotland, where an ancient curse hangs over the MacTeam clan.

Aunt Edith(Katherine Emery) spends some time narrating the tale to us as if telling us a bedtime story or fairytale.

Gerald is engaged to Kitty Murray(Veronica Hurst). At the beginning of The Maze, we find Gerald and Kitty regaling their engagement in Canne, with Kitty’s Aunt Edith, played by Katherine Emery(Isle of The Dead). Suddenly Gerald receives an urgent telegram telling him to come to Craven Castle immediately, although he has just told the women, that he had not been there in years.

Gerald leaves abruptly with the promise that he’ll contact Kitty once he’s settled. But weeks go by with no contact from Gerald. Her telegrams have all been delivered but there is still no answer from her fiance for several weeks.

Aunt Edith guides Kitty that Gerald’s silence is his answer. But Kitty is determined to find out why Gerald hasn’t contacted her. She’s worried that he’s in trouble, reading the announcement in the newspaper that his Uncle Samuel has passed away at age 45, Kitty insists that she and Aunt Edith go to Scotland to help Gerald who must be in terrible shape not to answer her telegrams.

Kitty is relentless and irritating throughout the film. You don’t admire her determination, rather you resent her ignoring Gerald’s wishes, and not respecting his privacy once they arrive. Prying and questioning all the rules of the MacTeam family. Gerald coldly tells her to leave, yet she insinuates herself into the situation, against his wishes. Kitty even has the audacity to invite their friends to the castle without Gerald knowing about it.

The male servants try everything they can at thwarting Kitty’s inquisitiveness. One of the maids has quit, because she wandered into the maze and was horrified. Gerald insists that from now on, William is to hire only male help.

When Kitty and Aunt Edith arrive at Craven Castle cloaked in the foggy Highland mist, they are greeted by the stoic and stern William played by Michael Pate(The Killer is Loose, Curse of the Undead, an interesting vampire western).

When Kitty sees the changes in Gerald, who looks like he’s aged 20 years, with hair turned white on the sides and his face frozen in a stony expression, she’s shocked. Gerald is furious that she’s come to the castle. He had written Edith specifically telling them that he is releasing Kitty from the engagement. That if he were to leave the castle, it would mean certain death. This line of the note is scratched out in pencil, but Kitty erases it and reads what he has written. This only propels Kitty’s prowess to see her fiance even more. Aunt Edith goes along unwillingly yet for moral support.

Gerald insists that they leave in the morning, putting them in adjoining rooms. Aunt Edith had been forewarned about the strange rules of the castle, but Kitty is unnerved when they are locked in at night. She sees a light under the door, and we hear a strange slithering, dragging noise as it passes by her room. This does not discourage her, she finds a secret passageway to a lookout and watches as a light moves along the maze in the dark. She tells Aunt Edith that something is going on and begs Aunt Edith who merely has the sniffles to feign illness so that they can stay a bit longer to investigate.

The curious rules, the rubber matting on the floors, the steps that are more like platforms, the strange sounds, and lights, and the drastic change in Gerald’s demeanor all work on the spirit of Kitty’s curiosity to find out the truth.

Kitty conspires to send a telegram to her friends in London, one a doctor friend Burt Dilling (John Dodsworth), and invites him and Hillary Brooke as Peggy Lord and another couple to come to the castle under the guise of them stopping by while touring the Scottish countryside. All this is a ruse to get Dr. Burt Dilling to check in on his friend Gerald.

William and the other servants are mysterious and steadfast in their protection of the secret of the MacTeam legacy and why Gerald has turned his back on his modern life, and engagement to the beautiful Kitty. Now the secret of Craven Castle and what lurks in The Maze unfolds in vintage 50’s campy style. The Maze is a lot of fun, it rekindles that childhood memory of being shocked at the time, now it’s just wonderful to watch Richard Carlson a great mainstay of the genre play the tormented Gerald who must now take up the mantle of the family legacy.

There is a bit of Lovecraftian theme to The Maze which seldom translates well enough on screen yet does give this film enough of an eerie quality, in retrospect.

And Cryptozoologists will have a ball at the climax of the film. I only wish I could have seen it in its 3 Dimensional glory!

The Narrow Margin 1952: Nobody likes a fat man

The Narrow Margin (1952) Directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Charles McGraw plays the sandy graveled voice of Detective Sgt. Walter Brown who’s reluctantly been chosen to escort a mob widow to the grand jury hearing in Los Angeles by train.

In the process of picking up Mrs. Frankie Neal, in Chicago, Walter’s partner is shot and killed in the darkly lit stairwell by a mysterious assassin played by Peter Virgo, the ruthless Densel, who wears a fur-trimmed coat.Â This only causes Walter to further resent the woman he’s been charged to protect and see to it that she makes it to the trial to testify against the mob.

This noir film has a lot of familiar elements, gangsters, the train ride, the detective’s dilemma – as the die-hard cop fends off the criminal elements that surround him, and the wrong man/woman trope. The mobsters, Vincent Yost, Densel, and Joseph Kemp want to get hold of a valuable list of names that Frankie’s widow will bring to trial. Yost tries to bribe Det. Walter Brown, but he’s an honest cop who can’t be taken in.

The Narrow Margin also stars Marie Windsor as Mrs. Frankie Neal’s widow and Jaqueline White as the respectable Ann Sinclair, a classy woman, and mother,Â traveling on the train with her little boy Tommy and their nanny.

Ann gets caught in the cross hairs of the intrigue when the gangsters mistakenly take Ann for Frankie’s widow. The majority of the film takes place on the train heading for Los Angeles. Don Beddoe plays Det. Sgt. Gus Forbes, “the fat man” who keeps getting in the way of Walter. He repeats the self-abasing proverb “Nobody likes a fat man” as he lumbers his way through the narrow passageways of the train en route to L.A.

Frankie’s widow Mrs. Neal is an obnoxious loud-mouthed dame, who doesn’t want to play by the rules and blasts her record player even after Walter warns her to hide out in the train compartment that the thugs think is empty. Marie Windsor reminds me a bit of the wonderfully quirky Ileana Douglas (Goodfellas, Six Feet Under, Cape Fear 1991). Douglas is the granddaughter of the great actor Melvyn Douglas. The fabulous actress isn’t a stranger to film noir, having appeared in some of the most underrated films of the genre, Force of Evil 1948 with John Garfield, The Sniper 1952, City that Never Sleeps 1953, and what I consider to be one of the top ten film noirs of all time, Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing 1956. Windsor is perhaps at her best in the role of the conniving Sherri Peatty who beats the spirit of her husband George (Elisha Cook) until he’s desperate to pull a heist that goes terribly wrong.

Walter: Sister I’ve known some pretty hard cases in my time, you make em all look like putty. You’re not talkin’ about a sack of gum drops gonna get smashed. You’re talkin’ about a dame’s life.You make think it’s funny for a woman with a kid to stop a bullet for ya, but I’m not laughing.

Frankie’s widow: Really well I don’t care, she got twins, you talk like you’d rather I got the bullet who’s side are you on anyhow?

Walter: Listen Jingle Jaw nothin’s happened to you yet has it?

Frankie’s widow: No, well it better not.

Walter: Well then shut up!

The Killer Is Loose: Gutsy Crime Noir: Get Lila (1956)

Part of my Women in Peril series.

The Killer is Loose (1956) directed by Budd Boetticher revolves around a bank robbery in downtown L.A. While the police have set up a wiretapping operation it is revealed that the meek bank teller Leon Poole is the inside man. Leon had faked going after the robbers and getting struck by one of them in the process. This impresses his old army Sargent who was in the bank at the time. We learn that the nickname Foggy was given to Leon by his superior officer and the entire company apparently to poke fun at Leon” Foggy” Poole for being a simple-minded coward. Starring Joseph Cotten as Detective Sam Wagner, Rhonda Fleming as his wife Lila, and Wendell Corey as Leon “Foggy” Poole.

During the apprehension of Leon, Detective Sam Wagner accidentally kills Poole’s young wife who wasn’t supposed to be home, and at Leon’s trial, he swears to get back at Detective Wagner while staring at Detective Wagner’s wife who is present in the courtroom.

This is the inception of theÂ woman in peril theme once Leon sets his gaze on Sam’s wife Lila the object of his hatred fixed on her from here on in.

In a very chilling manner, Leon asks why Sam’s wife Lila should still be alive. Leon’s lack of affect shows us a more deranged man than someone who might be prone to violent outbursts, and it is this subtlety of his underlying psychosis that is so frightening.

About three years later, Poole (until then a model prisoner) abruptly takes his chance to kill a guard and escape. It’s clear during the ensuing manhunt that Poole is obsessed in pursuit of a single end; but not quite the end everyone supposes.

After serving 3 years in prison, Leon gets assigned to an “honor” work farm, where because of his mild manner and seemingly model behavior is trusted to go on a ride with one of the prison guards to unload a truck. Leon seizes the opportunity to escape by brutally killing the driver and then proceeds on his odyssey of revenge. Like a shark that never stops moving, Leon is driven only by his desire to exact the same outcome for Detective Wagner, to target Lila as retribution for the killing of his beloved wife. Leon becomes a killing machine. Going from one opportunistic murder to the next until he can reach Sam’s wife. So begins the full-scale manhunt for the killer on the loose.

Budd Boetticher gives us a very bleak yet dramatic landscape of America’s man vs society, cop vs criminal, and good vs evil. Like some of the wild west pictures that Boetticher is known for, except here it’s played out in an urban city setting. Leon is a man set on revenge with no other driving desire and void of a consciousness that we can see.

The Killer is Loose is uncompromisingly realistic and often brutal in its portrayal of the ordinary machinations of a psychotic murderer, especially for its time. I’m not a huge Rhonda Fleming fan, but I do love Joseph Cotten in anything even his later cult and horror period like Baron Blood, Airport ’77, and Soylent Green.

The really memorable star of this gutsy Mise en scene police vs criminal noir is the killer himself Leon “Foggy” Poole played brilliantly by Wendell Corey who defined his sober character with simplicity, and an almost naivete childlike quality. This is what makes the film so compelling. Leon doesn’t understand why he shouldn’t kill the people who are getting in the way of his fixing Detective Sam Wagner for having inadvertently killed Leon’s wife during a raid on his apartment.

Wendell Corey’s Leon never comes across as unhinged in an overt way, it’s the way he holds back his emotions that makes his killer enigmatic and makes your skin crawl.

There are moments of exasperation in The Killer Is Loose for me. The police often miss the mark when trying to effectively do their job, and I find Rhonda Fleming’s character as Sam’s wife Lila annoying most of the time. IÂ was more sympathetic to Mary, the wife of Sam’s partner Michael Pate (Curse Of The Undead)Detective Chris Gillespie played by great character actress Virginia Christine.

Still, The Killer Is Loose is a compelling watch, because of its existential informality in some of the more brutal moments which are powerful. The tone of Killer overrode the failings of this film for me and soÂ I was able to separate myself from the few things that irked me like Lila’s stubborn harping and the police’s ineffectual fumblings.

There are some other great veteran actors in this film like the always jovial Alan Hale Jr and John Larch who plays Otto Flanders, Foggy’s superior officer in the army who gave him the nickname Foggy as an insult.

Phantom Lady: Forgotten Cerebral Noir: It’s not how a man looks, it’s how his mind works that makes him a killer.

Phantom Lady (1944)

Directed by the master of suspenseful thrillers and fabulous noirs- Robert Siodmak; (Son of Dracula 1943, The Suspect 1944, Christmas Holiday 1944 The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry 1945, The Killers 1946, The Dark Mirror, The Spiral Staircase 1946, Cry of the City 1948, Criss Cross 1949, The File of Thelma Jordon 1948) is as nightmarish and psychologically aromatic as it is a penetrating crime noir. The distinguishing cinematography by Woody Bredell.

Phantom Lady is a sadly neglected film noir based on a story by Cornell Woolrich and scripted for the screen by Bernard C. Schoenfeld. Stars the quietly enigmatic Ella Raines (Cry ‘Havoc’ 1943, The Suspect 1944, Impact 1949), as Carol “Kansas” Richman, Franchot Tone as Jack Marlow, and Alan Curtis as the leading man Scott Henderson. The film also co-stars Thomas Gomez (Key Largo) as perceptive Detective Burgess, the intelligent and compassionate detective who eventually comes around to believe in Scott Henderson’s innocence. This film noir is directed by Robert Siodmak who derived attention after the release of Phantom Lady which carved out a niche for him in film noir. Adding to the wonderful direction, the film benefits from Woody Bredell’s cinematography (Black Friday 1940, Christmas Holiday 1944, The Ghost of Frankenstein 1942, The Mystery of Marie Roget 1942) He added the elements of Woolrich’s world, from the fraught innocence roaming New York City, a dark blistering urban landscape, threatening shadows, seedy bars, jazz and Kansas’ high heels escaping the pavement.

Phantom Lady utilizes noir’s innocent man theme beautifully. Siodmak’s directing creates an often nightmarish realm, the characters float in and out of. The intersectionality frames the story between crime melodrama and psychological thriller. Siodmak is a master storyteller who earned an Oscar nomination for The Killers in 1946.

Although on the surface you would assume Phantom Lady to be a man-in-peril film, it actually functions as a woman in danger as well because Carol “Kansas” puts herself in harm’s way in order to help her boss, whom she’s in love with. Fay Helm’s mysterious woman has a tragic trajectory herself as a woman who is spiraling into oblivion by a mental decline after losing her beloved fiance.

Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis), a successful young businessman, spends the night with a mysterious woman whose identity is unknown to him. Only later do we learn that her name is Ann Terry (Fay Helm) The two first meet in a bar after Scott has been shunned by his wife for the last time. The phantom lady is obviously disturbed by something causing her emotional pain, she finally agrees to take in a show with Scott who has tickets. The conditions are that they do not exchange names as it’s just a way for both of them to keep themselves occupied at a moment when both are feeling dejected.

The “Phantom Lady” is wearing a sensationally quirky hat which the film revolves around in a sense because Scott returns home to find his apartment crawling with police after his wife has been brutally strangled, with one of Scott’s expensive ties. The anonymous lady who wore this stand-out hat is the only key to providing Scott with an alibi.

Scott proceeds to tell Inspector Burgess (the wonderful Thomas Gomez), that he spent the night with this no-name woman, after fighting with his wife and that there are several people who would have seen them together. The bartender, the cabbie with a very memorable name, and the temperamental lead singer/dancer in the musical review could identify him accompanied by the phantom lady, because of her supposedly original hat– the performer Estela Monteiro (Aurora Miranda) was also wearing the same hat on stage, which is later used as a lead. Aurora shoots daggers at the phantom lady for having worn the same design. You could see the fury on her face as she sings her musical number. Estela Monteiro has a fit, walks off stage and decrees that no one would have the nerve to wear one of her original hats, and throws hers away. Wonderful character actor Doris Lloyd plays the designer Kettisha who is sought after for her one-of-a-kind hat designs.

Inspector Burgess takes Scott around to each of these witnesses but no one recalls having seen him with the woman at all. They all very curiously deny seeing the lady, and it becomes obvious that something is very wrong with the testimony from all these people who were obviously covering something up. Neither the cab driver, the bartender, nor the singer will confirm his story. The outcome looks bleak for Scott.

Inspector Burgess: [Questioning] You’re a pretty neat dresser, Mr. Henderson.

Detective Tom: [Taunting] Yeah. Everything goes together. It’s an art.

Inspector Burgess: Nice tie you’re wearing.

Scott Henderson: [Upset] Tie?

Detective Tom: Pretty taste. Expensive. I wish I could afford it.

Scott Henderson: Hey, what are you trying to do to me? Marcella’s dead, gimme a break! What’s the difference if my tie is OK or not?

Inspector Burgess: It makes a great deal of difference, Mr. Henderson.

Scott Henderson: Why?

Inspector Burgess: Your wife was strangled with one of your ties.

Detective Chewing Gum: Yeah. Knotted so tight it had to be cut loose with a knife.

Because it appears that Scott is guilty of the crime he is sentenced to death and faces the electric chair in 18 days. With no witnesses to back him up.

Even his best friend sculptor Jack Marlow played by gravel-toned sophisticate Franchot Tone who doesn’t come onto the scene until midway through the film, is away on business in Brazil, so there is no one but sweet and devoted secretary Kansas who is left to stand by Scott. Scott resigns himself to his fate and doesn’t even blame the jury for their decision.

Scott Henderson is a civil engineer who was in a loveless marriage with a beautiful associate, his faithful secretary who works for him, which he affectionately calls Kansas. She never doubts his innocence for a moment and devoutly sets out on a mission to try and find this mysterious lady to prove she really does exist, before it’s too late. Inspector Burgess and Kansas both believe Scott’s innocence and help each other to try and prove it. Kansas tracks down those whom she knows have lied about seeing this woman. She haunts the bar where Scott first met this mysterious woman.

Kansas assumes the role of serious cookie as she taunts Mac the bartender who denies having ever seen the woman with the funny hat in his bar with Scott at the time his wife was murdered. The bartender winds up getting killed in a car accident. She also goes undercover as a “hep kitten” to trap the lecherous and super frenetic drummer Cliff played to the sweaty frenzied orgasmic nines by Elisha Cook Jr. The jazz fanatic admits that he has been paid off to “forget” the woman. But when Kansas drops her purse and Cliff sees the police sheet on him that she’s carrying on him, he goes even wackier and pursues her. She evades him and calls Burgess.

Along the way, Inspector Burgess confronts Kansas in her apartment and tells her that although he did his job at the time, he also believes in Scott’s story because a child could make up a better alibi than the story he has stuck to so religiously. So now Kansas and Burgess set about to prove that someone has been tampering with these witnesses.

At this point, Jack Marlow, Scott’s secretly crazed artist friend comes back from Brazil to lend his help in getting to the bottom of the case. Jack was having an affair with Scott’s wife and killed her when she refused to run away with him. The always-present Jack begins to play an important role in helping solve the murder. He meets Kansas at the prison while both are visiting Scott.Â He wants to help her find the real murderer. They eventually trace the hat to Ann Terry after they find the milliner who designed the unusual hat. Ann gives them the hat.Â Kansas goes back to Jack’s studio to wait for Burgess and winds up discovering her stolen purse, realizing that Jack is in fact the murderer. Jack begins to untie his scarf, another strangulation on his mind, but Burgess arrives just in time and Jack commits suicide by defenestration. Interesting to note that Jack’s obsession with his hands reminds me of Maurice Renard’s novel The Hands of Orlac adapted in 1924 starring Conrad Veidt, again in Mad Love in 1935 starring Peter Lorre, and then again in 1960 starring Mel Ferrer.

What lies ahead is a very gripping story with several taut and fiery moments amidst the looming shadows and dead ends.

Elisha Cook Jr. is too believable yet fantastic as the tweaked sleazy drummer who’s got an appetite for women in the audience, even the phantom lady whom he flirted with.

And Fay Helm plays a very palpable victim of her own sadness as the Phantom Lady who alludes to the police after that one night at the musical revue with Scott.

What adds to the noirish obfuscation of the story is the witnesses who are despicable in their evasiveness, which creates an atmosphere of obstruction that is stirring and at times, maddening. But they will all meet a certain cosmic justice by the film’s end.

Woolrich was a prolific writer whose work came close to being as popular as Raymond Chandler, and he was responsible for many of the screenplays of the 1940s as well as the radio drama Suspense. Ella Raines is absolutely breathtaking to look at. And sadly Alan Curtis having died in the 50s of complications from surgery was not only great at being sympathetic, but he was also strikingly handsome as well.

Carol ‘Kansas’ Richman: [Visiting Scott in prison] Is there anything I can do for you?

Scott Henderson: Yes. You can thank the foreman. I forgot to.

Carol ‘Kansas’ Richman: I don’t know what to say.

Scott Henderson: Skip it, Kansas. I’ll be all right now that I know where I stand. Yes, I’ll be fine. Last night for the first time I didn’t have to count sheep. I slept like a guilty man.

Phantom Lady is a cerebral excursion, which uncovers a lot of psychological layers for us, as it progresses.

Without giving away any key parts of the plot, I’ll say that the film shows us the dark side of humanity.

Without going into the background of the characters, the narrative of Phantom Lady is drawn out in little scenic bursts of disclosure. While the film doesn’t describe to us why these characters are doing what they do with the use of flashback another noir technique, we see who these people are by their actions. The film explores human nature in a slightly gritty naturalistic style.

The cinematography by Elwood Bredell (The Ghost of Frankenstein 1942, The Mystery of Marie Roget 1942, Christmas Holiday 1944, Lady on a Train 1945, The Killers 1946, The Unsuspected 1947, Female Jungle 1956)Â is remarkable as Bredell paints a landscape of looming shadows, dark sinister corners and breaks of light that cut through the clouds of mystery and excursions into bad spaces.

A nightmarish journey of the wrongly accused, the tragedy of loss, greed, true madness, and sometimes darkness of the soul. And ultimately the love that bears its fruits by unrelenting devotion and the pursuit of the truth at any cost.

Kansas will need to wash her mouth out with bleach after the predatory Cliff plants a raptorial kiss on her!

Inspector Burgess: The fact remains that none of you could have committed these murders.

Jack Marlow: Why not?

Inspector Burgess: You’re all too normal.

Jack Marlow: Oh, the murderer must be normal enough. Just clever, that’s all.

Inspector Burgess: Yes, all of them are. Diabolically clever.

Jack Marlow: Who?

Inspector Burgess: Paranoiacs.

Jack Marlow: That’s simply your opinion. Psychiatrists might disagree.

Inspector Burgess: Oh, I’ve seen paranoiacs before. They all have incredible egos. Abnormal cunning. A contempt for life.

Jack Marlow: You make it sound unbeatable.

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And not forgotten: yet more women still in peril

In my series women in peril, I am approaching certain films that fit several other sub genres. I might use titles for this particular series but later on down the road, I will examine them further with commentaries whichÂ fall under other genres / Classic horror, obscure cult films of the 70’s, Cinematic madness, Satan in Suburbia, the slasher flick and so on. These might be approached from a different P.O.V. or thematic relevance.

Although I’ve been showing images and listing titles of films that stroke that certain chord of femmes in distress, I will want to approach certain of these films in more depth under other categories later on. And just to mention a few more ladies whom I adore: Veronica Lake, Eleanor Parker, Gena Rowlands, Nina Foch, Merle Oberon, Gene Tierney, Ruth Gordon, Linda Darnell, Jane Greer, Jeanne Moreau, Charlotte Rampling, Karen Black and so many more.

Scenes from The Witches

Shadows In The Night (1944)

Carnival of Souls (1962)

The Damned Don’t Cry (1950)

The Night Porter (1974)

The Birds (1963)

Ms.45 (1981)

The Innocents (1961)

Dear Dead Delilah (1972)

Trilogy of Terror (1975)

The Witches (1966) alt title The Devil’s Own

Kind Lady (1951)

The Hearse (1980)

Barbarella (1968)

Marnie (1964)

Secret Ceremony (1968)

Ash Wednesday (1973)

Cat people (1942)

Possession (1947)

Bluebeard (1944)

Bedlam (1946)

Three Faces of Eve (1957)

Let’s scare Jessica to death (1971)

Straight on til morning (1972)

Svengali (1931)

My blood runs cold (1965)

Haunts (1977)

In the devil’s garden (1971)

Twisted Nerve (1968)

House of whipcord

Women In Peril: Feature Overview Part II

Here is the second installment, a few more films that I consider highly engrossing for this theme, Women In Peril, horror/noir/mystery, and thriller. Some films create environments where the women in danger are subjected to psychological distress as much as they are in mortal danger of their lives. I hope you find this additional list interesting and entertaining. Again, I will review some or most of what I’ve listed below. I’ll go more in-depth as I usually do once I am examining a film as a singular entry which allows me more time to elaborate on the details, plot design, my impressions of the film, and a little referential details as I always like to do.

Note: I can’t do Last House On The Left, because I could never bring myself to see it. And I was interested in covering Tattoo, but I’ve heard it’s just a vile misogynist mess, so I’m not sure I’d even waste the time.

And I haven’t been able to get my hands on a copy of The Todd Killings which I would LOVE to see. Update: Got it!

The Todd Killings (1971) -The Oedipal Minstrel Killer of Tuscon and the Cult of Anti-Hero Worship

The Killing Kind (1973) I won’t be reviewing this film. I mention it because it fits the genre, yet I won’t be able to watch it again as I have previously stated there is a horrible scene of animal cruelty to cats and I just can’t bring myself to watch it again. I am a huge admirer of Curtis Harrington, yet I believe the film would have been better if he hadn’t included that aspect in this film. John Savage plays illegitimate Terry Lambert a young man falsely accused of participating in a gang-rape. While in prison he develops a violent sexual penchant towards women. Once released he moves back home with his emasculating mother played by Ann Southern, which only fuels his rage further. He winds up going on a killing spree of revenge toward all the women he perceives as having wronged him. Also stars Ruth Roman

Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting (1969) A mentally disturbed man stalks a woman who had once aborted the child he had fathered.

Stars Paul Burke and Carol White. Directed by Mark Robson. Again, I vaguely remember a cat being killed in this film, so I might skip the review.

Conflict (1945) Humphrey Bogart plays Richard Mason who pretends to be an invalid so he can plot to kill his wife Kathryn He does, however, kill her on a lonely mountain road. Or did he really succeed? Soon after, He smells her perfume, finds her jewelry, and sees an envelope addressed in her handwriting. Stars Alexis Smith and Sydney Greenstreet.

The Fantasist (1986) When an Irish woman moves from the suburbs to Dublin, she begins receiving phone calls from a stranger. Stars Moira Harris, Christopher Cazenove, and Timothy Bottoms.

Screaming Mimi (1958) Starring Anita Ekberg and directed by Gerd Oswald, She plays a tormented Exotic dancer Virginia Wilson. Who witnesses a murder? Each victim had purchased a contorted sculpture of a woman called the Screaming Mimi, which was created by her step-brother Charlie who was also responsible for shooting her attacker.

So Sad About Gloria (1975)

A young woman just released from a mental hospital moves back in with her family. However, she is soon troubled by disturbing visions in which she commits a series of axe murders. Stars Lori Saunders and Dean Jagger.

The Climax (1944)

Starring Boris Karloff he plays Dr Hohner the theatre physician at the Vienne Royal Theatre who has already killed his mistress and then becomes obsessed with a young diva (Susanna Foster)and goes to extreme lengths to make sure she will never sing for anyone else but him.

The 7th Victim (1943) A young woman (Kim Hunter) in search of her missing sister uncovers a Satanic cult in New York’s Greenwich Village and finds that they may have something to do with her sibling’s random disappearance. Starring Kim Hunter and Jean Brooks, this is yet another of Val Lewton’s masterpieces, directed by Mark Robson who worked very closely with Lewton on his collection of shadow masterpieces for the poverty row scene set up to compete with Universal. I will be doing a feature on Val Lewton in the future and will be revisiting this film as part of his collection.

Jane Eyre (1943) Faithful adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s gothic romance about Jane played by Joan Fontaine, who has had a brutal childhood in a stark and cruelly run orphanage, comes to an old manor house, to take care of Margaret O’Brien, the daughter of the mysterious and angry Edward Rochester, played by the brooding Orson Welles.

The Big Heat (1953) Starring Glenn Ford as a jaded cop and Gloria Grahame the ex-mob gal whose face has been disfigured by her scorned lover (Lee Marvin). Ford enlists her help in trapping the mobster who was responsible for killing his wife. Grahame’s character is so integral to the plot, as she is thrown in harm’s way once again. Noir at its best.

Straight Jacket

1964) stars Joan Crawford and Diane Baker. Directed by the showman William Castle and written by Robert Bloch, this is a story about insanity and the mother/daughter relationship complexities that unfold, once Crawford is released from an institution

Revenge, Axes, and Motherhood.

In Walk On The Wild Side (1962) Capucine plays Halie Gerard a kept woman by Jo (Barbara Stanwyck)who runs a house of ill repute. Jane Fonda(Kitty) and Laurence Harvey (Dove) stumble onto the House where Barbara Stanwyck keeps a tight hold on her call girls. When Capucine wants to leave with Harvey she threatens her safety and puts her life in jeopardy. Directed by Edward Dmytryk and the sultry titles by Saul Bass, make this a sexy thriller. Also starring Anne Baxter and Joanna Moore who also suffers at the hands of her brutal boyfriend Richard Rust.

Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) Otto Preminger directs this psychological masterpiece, where Carol Lynley comes to London with her little girl and her brother Kier Dullea. When Bunny her child goes missing after dropping off at school, no one believes her story, or that the little girl ever existed at all. Lynley’s ordeal is almost more punishing than if she herself were in danger because the psychic pain she endures is more compelling in a lot of ways. Laurence Olivier plays the kindly detective on the case.

Midnight Lace (1960)

Doris Day stars as the wife of David Niven. One day she hears a voice in the fog, and then she is continued to be assailed by an unseen figure. Is David Niven trying to gaslight her?

The Lodger (1944) Directed by John Brahm and scripted by Barre Lyndon, this adaptation of the Jack the Ripper-themed treatment stars Merle Oberon and Laird Cregar as the mysterious boarder who lives upstairs with his little black bag.

The Snake Pit (1948)

Directed by Anatole Litvak, this stars Olivia de Havilland as a woman whose harrowing life of hallucinations and memory loss come spiraling out of control as she is then thrown into a mental institution, the snake pit.

When A Stranger Calls (1979) Carol Kane stars as the babysitter who picks up the phone only to hear the voice on the other end say ” Have you checked the children”

Laura(1944) directed by Otto Preminger is a film noir masterpiece starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, and Vincent Price. A police detective Dana Andrews falls in love with the woman whose murder he’s investigating.

Human Desire (1954) Directed by Fritz Lang this stars Gloria Grahame as the emotionally abused wife of jealous brut Broderick Crawford who works with Glenn Ford as a train engineer. Once Ford starts up an affair with Grahame things really get complicated for everyone. Blackmail, violence, murder, and passion. Another noir masterpiece.

The Unsuspected (1947) Directed by Michael Curtiz, Claude Raines plays Victor Grandison “Grandy” who hosts a radio show called ” The Unsuspected” which is a murder mystery program. A girl has been murdered. Joan Caulfield and Audrey Totter star in this intense thriller.

Fingers At The Window (1942)Stars Lew Ayres and Laraine Day and Basil Rathbone. There is an Axe Murderer running amok in the streets of Chicago. Lew Ayres takes a special interest in Laraine Day when he discovers that she might be next.

Dragonwyck (1946) Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz starring Gene Tierney and Vincent Price as the Lord of the Land in old Upstate New York, who takes Tierney as his bride after his first wife succumbs to illness. Once Tierney is on the estate, she finds her gentleman husband, who has strange mood swings and secrets as he insists that she bare him a son. Outstanding story with exceptional acting by Price and Tierney. Another of my favorite actresses.

The Woman In White (1948) Starring Alexis Smith, Eleanor Parker, Gig Young, and Agnes Moorehead, Young is a painter who comes to give lessons to Eleanor Parker, when a strange and mysterious woman dressed in white keeps appearing. Is she a ghost? And what are the secrets that Sidney Greenstreet is keeping?