JM Cozzoli

The glory days of television and movie westerns faded away by the late 1960s. Personally, I pin the start of their demise with the advent of sputnik in 1957. Its surprise entry into the consciousness and social bubble of the United States provided a dose of reality that westerns could no longer seek to hide. Don’t get me wrong: some of the most engaging and meaningful scripts came out of television cowboy dramas by writers like Gene Roddenberry and Samuel A. Peeples, notable for their Star Trek connections. It was Gene Roddenberry who pitched Star Trek: The Original Series as “Wagon Train to the stars,” referring to the television show Wagon Train, which he wrote for, and Peeples who came up with the “where no man has gone before” line.

But the complexity of life changed. Social issues, moral issues, sexual issues, political issues, religious issues, and technology issues, they all combined into a world that was a far cry from the simplicity of the westerns with their black and white bad guys, good guys, Indians, guns, and the wilderness. Some westerns, like Have Gun Will Travel, went the extra trail to write in more than the black and white, but given commercial-driven television, there was only so much the sponsors would allow. Of course, the more adult-slanted movies had no commercials, so great westerns like The Searchers, Stagecoach, High Noon, and the Spaghetti Westerns are wonderful exceptions to the breakfast cereal wholesomeness to explore. But there’s nothing wrong with a little wholesomeness, like Davy Crockett or The Lone Ranger too.

What drew me to this Davy Crockett, Indian Scout pressbook was the color-in illustration, which pretty much sums up the wild west in one fell war whoop. The exploitation, which includes the Indian Scout Matinee and Sitting Bull Waits for Davy, stunts is pure 1950s.

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Davy Crockett, Indian Scout (1950)Read More »

Skip Homeier (as Emil) plays a German boy indoctrinated in the Hitler Youth movement. He is sent to America to live with his uncle, in the hope he can be deprogrammed. First a successful stage play, where Homeier also played Emil, both play and movie are still relevant (even more so) today. Homeier had a long and busy acting career in both movies and television. He played a Nazi officer in the original Star Trek episode Patterns of Force, and a space hippie in the wildly odd ST episode This Way to Eden. And, as Svengoolie would reluctantly admit, he also appeared in Perry Mason episodes.

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Tomorrow the World! (1944) PressbookRead More »

Take One False Step is not a standout for noir crime movies, but it has William Powell (of Philo Vance and Nick Charles notoriety) and Shelley Winters. She is always etched in my mind after watching the 1975 episode of Johnny Carson where she dumped her drink over Oliver Reed’s head after his misogynistic comment to her. You didn’t diss Ms. Winters, who won academy awards and played her own woman in her strong Hollywood career. Her role as the ill-fated Willa in The Night of the Hunter (one of the best noir horrors directed by Charles Laughton, his only time as director), which leads to a chilling and surreal underwater scene of her dead body tied to a Ford Model T is classic and unforgettable. One wonders what other cinematic delicacies Laughton would have provided to the screen had he continued to direct.

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Take One False Step (1949)
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Twenty pages of promotion for the Ministry of Fear, 1944, in a large format pressbook, does justice to this intriguing noir suspense thriller about a man who wins a cake but doesn’t have the time to eat it because of Nazi saboteurs. Ray Milland (as Stephen Neale) plays the perfect patsy for accidentally getting in the middle of spy-full things. Making matters worse for him are his recent release from a mental ward and his sincere confusion as to what he’s exactly mixed up in, real or not. Fritz Lang directs with sufficient gloom and shadows and unpleasant people. Given Lang’s background, fear and paranoia move throughout the movie, and the wartime London intrigue keeps the environment tense. “The use of low-key lighting and oblique camera angles heightens tension and mirrors Stephen Neale’s psychological turmoil” (Movie Star History). I would add that Ray Milland’s eyes and face convey it all. See him in The Uninvited (1944) and The Big Clock (1948) too.

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Ministry of Fear (1944) PressbookRead More »

I’m a sucker for flashback noirs, I admit it. Give me D.O.A and I can watch it over and over again, though sometimes the dialog gets too syrupy. Give me Murder, My Sweet, with William Powell, and you can wipe the drool from my lips because I’ll be too busy watching Powell’s Philip Marlowe, private detective, getting squeezed like a tangerine by Mike Mazurki (as Moose Malloy), while Moose gets squeezed by memories of Velma (Claire Trevor), who Moose he hires a reluctant Marlowe to find. Moose may be short a third rail but he can squeeze real good. And Marlowe keeps getting squeezed by everybody, which makes this version of Raymond Chandler’s Farwell, My Lovely, a knockout punch. Powell, a musical comedy actor who yearned for more dramatic roles, bit off all he could chew with the role, and, aside from Robert Mitchum, makes the perfect onscreen Marlowe. This movie set the bar for noir movies to follow, with its snappy dialog, dreamy visuals, and characters that moved between dark and light with their desires in the urban environment. I became a Raymond Chandler, Rex Stout fan, having read their novels, between midnight and dawn, while working at Casablanca records as a night guard back in the 1970s in New York City. Now if Hollywood can actually do a decent Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin movie, I’d be aces.

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Murder, My Sweet (1944) PressbookRead More »

Orson Welles had a column in the New York Graphic (sic), called “Orson Welles’ Almanac,” in which he wrote: “Plant things that grow above the ground today, and go immediately to the Strand Theatre in Brooklyn and see a “B” minus picture called When Strangers Marry. It’s A plus entertainment but because it’s a quickie without any names on it, When Strangers Marry hasn’t had much of a play. Making allowances for its bargain-price budget, I think you’ll agree with me that it’s one of the most gripping and effective pictures of the year. It isn’t as slick as Double Indemnity or as glossy as Laura, but it’s better acted and better directed by William Castle than either.” (Wellesnet)

Betrayed (aka When Strangers Marry) is a William Castle revelation. We usually peg Castle as the carnival midway-styled showman and director who gave us memorably classic (albeit cheaply) rendered movies promoted with theater gimmicks. But Castle, who was smart enough to nab film rights to, and desperately yearned to direct, Rosemary’s Baby, and who collaborated with Orson Welles on Lady From Shanghai (a noir that beats other noirs silly), was one hell of a director without the gimmicks too. He also was greatly disappointed to find out he wouldn’t be directing Lady, although he had nabbed the film rights to that one too. Not only was he a good director, he also knew a good movie prospect when he saw one.

In Betrayed, Robert Mitchum, Kim Hunter, and Dean Jagger stretch the noir shadows when the obscenely rich guy wearing the Lion’s head mask and flashing thousands of dollars he hated to go home with winds up dead. Castle keeps the short running time (61 minutes) ticking by with suspense and creative use of the camera as it prowls around the threadbare sets and setups. His foreshadowing nods are a master class; simple but direct. With three (“without any names”) killer actors to help him, and a filmed story that stays razor-focused, and a nice-touch Hitchcockian cameo by Castle, this movie deserves more respect and inspection. Here’s the pressbook from Monogram.

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Betrayed (1944) PressbookRead More »

Secret passageways, creeping stalkers prowling at night, love triangles complicating relationships like guys and gals had nothing else to do, and intrepid women reporters, tough as nails, always screaming on cue. Ah, the early days of mystery and intrigue. Oh, and toss in that crazy scientist conducting brain experiments (which was a scripting go-to back then for some reason), a “Thing” kidnapping that spunky reporter (through those convenient sliding panel beckoning hidden passageways), and that close-by sanitarium as the main hideout. Don’t you also miss those days of naming actors with catchy nicknames like “Big Boy” Williams in the credits? I don’t recall women ever getting nifty nicknames, do you?

One more thing (no, not that Thing). I mention The Phantom because it is recognized as having influenced the horror genre and was an early independent film (Artclass Pictures Corp.) with horror elements. (See The Phantom (1931): Hollywood’s First Independent Horror Movie for a critical analysis.)

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The Phantom (1931) PressbookRead More »