MILDRED PIERCE (1945)

Michael Curtiz, 1945

Starring: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden

Mildred Pierce is brought to the police station to explain the death of her husband, the playboy Monte Beragon, who was shot in his beach-side cottage. Her ex-husband, Bert, is the main suspect, but Mildred insists he is innocent and explains recent events. Four years ago, Bert and Mildred divorced, because he was unemployed and racking up bills, while she was trying to provide for her two spoiled daughters, the haughty Veda and tomboy Kay. Mildred secretly took a job as a waitress and began selling baked goods on the side to support Veda’s increasingly extravagant lifestyle.

After setting aside some money, Mildred opened a restaurant, which soon became into a profitable chain. Kay fell ill and died, resulting in Mildred spoiling Veda even further, until the girl became into a beautiful, but haughty and ungrateful 17-year-old. Mildred soon learned that Veda tricked a wealthy young man into marrying her and is now blackmailing him for a divorce. Horrified, Mildred kicks her out of the house, but regrets her decision, especially when she learns that Veda has become a nightclub singer. The only way Veda will come home is if Mildred improves her station in life and marries the indolent, womanizing Monte Beragon, who comes from a wealthy, upper class family. Mildred soon learns that Monte and Veda have an illicit history – and that Monte is all out of money – which results in his murder. Did Mildred kill him?

Based on a novel by James M. Cain (Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice), the film’s script was quite different from the source novel, adding everything from a murder (which the novel completely lacked) to punishment for Veda, which the Hays Code necessitated. The span of time in the novel is shorter and the setting is changed from Depression-era America to WWII. The latter is mentioned on and off throughout the film and is used as a loose explanation for why Mildred has to work and for why she is surrounded by scoundrels – all the good men have gone off to war. Mildred is more successful than she was in the novel, while Veda is far more useless and parasitic.

Mildred Pierce is essentially melodrama masquerading as noir. It would have been flat-out melodrama if the murder plot had not been added to the film. There are also some excellent film noir-like visuals throughout, including ominous shots of staircases, a mirror cracked by a bullet hole, dark and gloomy scenes in the beach house at night, and other shadowy, depressing shots that contrast with the sunny, California setting. The script also added common elements of the film noir: voice-over narration, flashbacks, and a lengthy police interrogation. There’s some wonderful cinematography from Ernest Haller that brings plenty of German expressionist elements into this tale of suburban America.

This is a loveless, oddly cold film, even though it is essentially about a mother’s love for her daughter. Everyone seems to be motivated by money; even Mildred is never shown giving affection – she simply tries to buy it, directly leading to Veda’s offensive attitude and obviously skewed perspective on life. Money appears in nearly every scene, whether Mildred’s employee and friend Ida is counting it, Mildred is earning it or spending it, or someone is taking money from her. While Veda is awful, the climate of the film and the behavior of the other characters makes it clear why she turned out this way – she is a direct product of her environment, which also somehow makes her more sympathetic. The distaste of the upper classes for employment and labor was something that essentially died out around this period (check out some Agatha Christie novels if you want to read about murder and the idle rich), when enterprising members of the lower classes found themselves wealthy and began to strike it rich and replace the hereditary aristocracy.

The concept of nouveau riche – making one’s fortune within their own generation or lifetime – clearly applies to Mildred herself. This distasteful term implies a lack of class, education, or breeding and Veda – despite the fact that she herself was born in a lower class – constantly throws this in Mildred’s face. Nothing Mildred provides will ever be enough, because it is not inherently Old Money. The film points out this hypocrisy through the only moneyed character, Monte. He is a broke, idle, useless, and immoral scoundrel who skates through life on his charm, grace, and family name. He bankrupts Mildred after agreeing to marry her, has a long-running affair with her 17-year-old daughter, among other things.

Ironically, Mildred’s struggles are all of her own doing. Her first husband, who strangely winds up being a minor hero by the film’s conclusion, is a jobless loafer, racking up bills and ignoring his wife and children. Even at the start of the film, the married Mildred bakes around the clock to bring in extra money and remains blinded to Veda’s increasingly nasty behavior. She consistently surrounds herself with lecherous, greedy men and willingly gives them a share in her business, despite the fact that it’s clear she and Ida could handle anything. She makes a deal to marry Monty – knowing his faults – and is somehow surprised when he ruins her financially and is caught having an affair with her daughter.

This was Joan Crawford’s only Academy Award – for Best Actress – through it revitalized her career and she went to on to appear in some other films noir, including Possessed and Johnny Guitar. Director Michael Curitz did not allegedly want her for the role, thanks to her demanding, difficult reputation, and tried to get everyone from Bette Davis to Barbara Stanwyck. Crawford fought for the role and is one of her finest.

Hungarian director Michael Curitz – known primarily for Casablanca, Angels with Dirty Faces, and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex – remains a forgotten and underrated Hollywood figure for reasons that I can’t quite figure out. Mildred Pierce moves at a decent pace, expertly includes film noir elements into what was initially a dark melodrama, has lovely visuals, and some great performances. Arguably, both Mildred Pierce and Casablanca are supported by incredibly strong leading and side performances and benefit from wonderful scripts. It’s difficult to say whether or not Curitz was a master director, but he certainly knew how to choose great projects and excellent casts.

Aside from Crawford, Mildred Pierce is full of solid performances. Eve Arden (Anatomy of a Murder, Grease) is great as Mildred’ employee, friend, and confident, Ida, and steals every scene she appears in. Ida is both a spirit of positivity – with her wisecracking humor – and negativity, as most of her dialogue revolves around complaining about men or Veda. She certainly lightens the tone of the film, matter-of-factly drawing attention to Veda’s horrible personality and the wolfish nature of all the men in Mildred’s life. Unfortunately, Mildred ignores her advice, which is to forget about the lot of them and cut them out of her life.

While Ann Blyth (Brute Force) is excellent as Veda, Martha Vickers (The Big Sleep) was allegedly considered for the role and I would have loved to see her in the film. Zachary Scott is perfect as the charming, slimy Monte Beragon, someone whose true character is obvious from the beginning of the film, but, in keeping with her treatment of Veda, Mildred fails to see the truth. Monte represents the corrupted wealthy class; raised in opulence and splendor, his wasted life is spent leaching off others, carrying on affairs with women, and going to parties.

Mildred Pierce is a strange, unsettling film, but one that comes highly recommended. It is difficult to really like or feel sympathy for any of the characters, but it presents an interesting slice of wartime life and a poignant look at the changing roles of women. The film is available on DVD, though hopefully sometime soon it will receive the Blu-ray, special edition treatment.

THE LETTER (1940)

William Wyler, 1940

Starring: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson

In the jungle of Malaysia, Leslie Crosbie shoots an acquaintance, Geoff Hammond, as he is fleeing her bungalow home. Locals fetch her husband, a planation manager, along with the family lawyer. Leslie explains that Hammond came to visit that evening and made numerous advances and then tried to rape her, so she shot him. While her husband believes her unquestioningly, their attorney, Howard Joyce, is not quite as sure. As a formality, she is arrested and tried. Her trial goes through without a hitch, until Joyce’s Malaysian clerk shows up with an incriminating letter that Leslie wrote to Hammond. Hammond’s bitter widow is willing to sell her the letter, but for a steep price.

Though it seems to have been forgotten alongside many other films from classic Hollywood, The Letter is the finest collaboration between director William Wyler and star Bette Davis, and may be the latter’s best performance. Wyler and Davis also worked together on Jezebel (1938) and The Little Foxes (1941). He also promised the lead role in Wuthering Heights (1939) to her, but it went to Merle Oberon, perhaps due to the end of an affair between Davis and Wyler. Wyler made a number of classics, such as Roman Holiday (1953) and How to Steal a Million (1966) with Audrey Hepburn. Other noir-like films include Detective Story (1951) and The Desperate Hours (1955), as well as the incredibly creepy The Collector (1965).

Based on a short story and then a play from W. Somerset Maugham, this is a compelling mix of film noir and melodrama. Though this was released a year or so before the film noir cycle officially began, The Letter is linked to the style/genre by its dark thematic content and impressive visuals. There are numerous shots of Davis in the shadows – moments of shadowy bars across her body or her face obscured by darkness – that betray a lot about her guilt and her real role as murderess.

Somerset Maugham would recycle some of the themes from The Letter throughout his incredible novels – the exoticism of foreignness, sexual intrigue, and marital difficulties. Some of his works had autobiographical elements and he incorporated his wide travels in his fiction. Apparently The Letter was based on the real case of a woman who shot and killed a male friend in Kulala Lumpur. He allegedly attempted to rape her, though her story fell apart and she was found guilty, but saved from execution. This wasn’t Davis’s first turn starring in a Maugham adaptation, as she also appeared in Of Human Bondage.

The opening is one of the most powerful in all of ‘40s cinema. The jungle is dark, but idyllic, and Malay workers are sprawled across the seen, sleeping. This calm is broken by gunfire, as Leslie follows the dying Hammond out of a bungalow and continues shooting him. The silvery, shining moon is ever present and the film’s almost constant shots of the jungle are eerie and surreal. Wyler highlights this sense of unease with the delicate, but persistent sound of wind chimes. Apparently he aimed for a sense of the surreal and the mysterious, which he deftly accomplished.

Davis and Wyler’s romance was allegedly more serious to Davis than it was to Wyler, no doubt to her abortion. Despite this, she remained a professional and continued to work with Wyler. Her portrayal of a broken hearted woman is certainly convincing, but she always claimed that Wyler was responsible for her finest performances; her work here as Leslie certainly ranks among her best. While Davis was known for playing this type of character – independent, though perhaps immoral women that reflected the period’s changing gender roles, this is one of her most tightly controlled performances. It proved she was capable of far more than histrionics. Leslie’s repression, control, and boredom are all associated with lace, which she meticulously creates throughout the film. This symbol of femininity, fragility, and decorum, is ultimately betrayed by her true nature, though she conceals this from herself and others as long as possible. In the pivotal scene, where she reclaims the letter, she wears a large, exotic-looking white lace veil, but is forced to remove it by Mrs. Hammond, just before kneeling, debased, at the other woman’s feet.

The rampant racism will bother contemporary viewers, but keep in mind that this is light years ahead of something like The Mask of Fu Manchu. The Malaysians are notably skeptical of the white characters – with good reason – and their reaction to the murder is fascinating. Alternatively, and whether or not Wyler intended this, the British/white reaction to the Malaysians is ridiculous, with their blatant short-sightedness, longing for “civilization,” and racism. Mrs. Hammond is the most troubling character. In the novel, this character is a Chinese mistress, not a wife, and the madam of a local brothel. Due to the Hays Code, she was transformed into a Eurasian wife, played by Gale Sondergaard. Sondergaard was an American born to Danish parents. Bafflingly, Warner Oland, a Swedish-American, became famous for playing both Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu. If, for a moment, you can brush aside the casting of dark-haired Scandinavians as Asian people, you might be able to ignore the obvious “yellow face” given to Sondergaard. Pretend that she’s actually Asian and her performance is starling and effective. I won’t ruin the ending, but it is quite a surprise. Mrs. Hammond is a stereotypical “dragon lady” of film noir and racist Hollywood movies poorly portraying Asians. Though she is given no dialogue and hazy motivations, she is hypnotic and demands attention in each of her scenes.

Though this is clearly Davis’s film, all the performances are top-notch. Herbert Marshall (Foreign Correspondent) is excellent as Leslie’s loyal, oblivious husband, who doesn’t find out the truth until it is too late. British theater actor James Stephenson is excellent as the hardnosed lawyer. Stephenson was allegedly fed up with Wyler’s intense, frustrating style and only stayed on at the behest of Davis. After the film’s completion – and his Best Supporting Actor nomination – he was grateful she convinced him to finish the film.

Incredibly building tension that never lets up, despite the film’s quiet tone and deliberate pacing, the only real flaws are the changes forced on the film by the Production Code. In Maugham’s original story, Leslie leaves her husband and goes off to live alone, forever mourning the man she loved – and killed. The Hays Code could not allow a woman to go unpunished, so Leslie was forced to meet death or imprisonment. I won’t spoil the ending, but it is surprisingly brutal.

Even the unnecessary changes imposed by the Hays Code can’t ruin this spectacular, sadly neglected film, which comes highly recommended. The Letter is available on DVD and all fans of film noir, dark melodrama, and of course of Bette Davis and Somerset Maugham will fall in love with it.

The Femme Fatale: Women in Film Noir

French for fatal or deadly woman, the femme fatale is a staple of film noir and has also appeared throughout centuries of myth, art, and literature. Used in different incarnations from the Middle Ages to Victorian England, the femme fatale has appeared as a vampire, witch, enchantress, or demon. She has appeared in the bible (Salome), in Greek mythology (Circe and Medea), classical drama (Clytemnestra), and history (Cleopatra). (To learn more about these various incarnations, Bram Dijsktra’s Idols of Perversity comes with the highest possible recommendation.)

In addition to her historical, literary basis, the femme fatale is likely a further development from the ‘20s flapper and/or vamp, cinema’s first independent woman. Clara Bow and Louise Brooks are solid examples of this type, a sexually promiscuous, independent woman. These characters (as well as the real life Bow and Brooks) often had more tragic outcomes than their later, femme fatale counterparts. They had a certain wantonness, an innocent joie de vivre that was taken advantage of by men. Though the femme fatale was often trapped in unwanted relationships, she is never a figure of innocence.

So far in my film noir series, I’ve covered a number of films that focus on the femme fatale. Even an early film noir like I Wake Up Screaming (1941) has a beautiful, ambitious character who uses her sexually to get ahead in life. A number of men are obsessed with her and her rejection of them – she chooses her career over any of the available relationship – leads to her death. Though she is killed fairly early in the film, her presence -- and portrait -- haunt the proceedings.

Vain and ambitious, the femme fatale uses her beauty and sexuality as a lure to trap men in dangerous, often fatal scenarios, and relies on deception more than outright violence to achieve her aims. Insane and murderous at worst, morally ambiguous and sexually tempting at best, the femme fatale is contrasted with the good girl, an innocent hoping to marry the hero, but who is quite out of place in the noir world. The good girl represents an ideal that can never be attained, a dream that is little more than a distant hope in film noir’s unending nightmare reality. Unlike the good girl, the femme fatale specifically rails against the conventional family structure: marriage, child-bearing, housework. She is glamorous and free-spirited, and above all prefers sex and independence to a life of dull security and domesticity.

The truly subversive element of film noir is not that the femme fatale exists and plays such a major role, but that the good girl nearly always fails in her quest to tie the hero does -- and the hero himself almost uniformly rejects marriage. There is a certain type of femme fatale that is generally trapped in an unwanted relationship with an older husband or powerful, unlawful man that she cannot escape from. She strives for financial and sexual independence and would rather face death than relinquish her individual identity and live out the rest of her life as a status symbol, a pretty object.

Throughout film noir, women trying to escape from their husbands include Rita Hayworth in Gilda and The Lady from Shanghai, Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Ava Gardner in The Killers. In many of the earlier films noir, marriage is a paralyzing influence – the husbands are often aged, ill, or paralyzed due to a varied set of circumstances. If these women are married, they generally have large, castle-like, cavernous homes that are really ornate prisons -- Murder, My Sweet, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, and The Lady from Shanghai are all examples of this. In Murder, My Sweet, Claire Trevor plays a cold-blooded murderer, a woman who will kill, imprison, or blackmail anyone trying to remove her from her recently elevated station in life. She falls under the type married to an older, infirm man with a massive, tomb-like home and an older daughter from a first marriage who receives the lion’s share of his affection. Trevor’s character is of course not faithful to her husband and will seduce anyone worth manipulating. Barbara Stanwyck’s memorable Phyllis Dietrichson from Double Indemnity is of the same time and ranks as one of film noir’s most famous protagonists.

In Ace in the Hole, Jan Sterling plays the greedy, ambitious wife of a loving man buried in a cave-in. Though ready to immediately flee, she is persuaded to take advantage of the situation, making quite a profit, but is driven into a homicidal rage when she tries to seduce a reporter, her business partner, and he refuses and humiliates her. Ida Lupino, so frequently a femme fatale in her early career, is yet another woman with a clueless, older husband in They Drive By Night. She murders him to get the man she wants and, when he refuses her, tries to have him imprisoned as an accomplice.

Another type is the cold-blooded, financially-motivated murderesses, famous examples of which include Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon and Jane Greer from Out of the Past. Though these women feel emotion – at least jealousy and possessiveness – they are incapable of real love and often wind up dead or imprisoned. Another interesting version of this type is Ann Savage in Detour. Her character is hardboiled, tough talking, sexual but completely unglamorous, and quick to blackmail a complete stranger. Her attitude and recklessness eventually get her killed, when she accidentally pushes someone too far.

A third type of note is the mentally diseased femmes fatale, which includes Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven, a horrible woman who kills in order to keep anyone from getting between herself and her husband. After coldly abandoning a fiancé (a young Vincent Price!), she kills her husband’s disabled younger brother by letting him drown, throws herself down the stairs to induce an abortion who she learns she is pregnant, and eventually commits suicide. With her final act, she frames her sister, who has struck up an innocent, warm friendship with her husband.

Sunset Boulevard is a another unique spin on this theme. While Norma Desmond is certainly a femme fatale, she is a more aggressive variety and holds the financial reigns, coercing a younger writer to become her paramour. The implication is that this independence has driven her mad, resulting in suicide attempts, delusions visions of grandeur, and murder. Carmen Sternwood from The Big Sleep is another – her actions, which include nymphomania, drug abuse, pornography, and murder – are depicted as the result of a real mental illness. While the latter is implied by the actions of many femmes fatale, it is not often openly addressed in the individual films.

Part of what makes the femme fatale so fascinating more than 70 years after the fact is that she represents a complex sort of duality. One on hand, scholars have seen these characters as early examples of liberated, independent women who strive for sexual and financial independence, who reject marriage simply because it hampers their autonomy. On the other hand, these characters exhibit cruel or evil traits; they are murderesses, poisoning, shooting, or drowning those who get in their way. Or, somehow worse, they convince unassuming men to commit murders for them and use their overripe sexuality as weapons. This dark fantasy is an aspect of fears due to changing sexual roles in WWII and post-war America.

Part of the problem is that WWII necessitated that women leave the traditional role of stay-at-home wife and mother and join the work force, since the majority of the country’s men were at work. The end of the war led to a strange rift; women were forced back into the home, but proved that they too could work, vote, play sports, and do everything that their husbands could (short of becoming soldiers – though some female nurses, journalists, and photographers insisted on traveling to the front lines). The perpetually threatened state of masculinity and heteronormative life that plagued the early ‘40s haunts both decades of noir cinema.

There are, of course, hundreds of these characters and dozens of well-known actresses who regularly took these roles, including Joan Crawford, Veronica Lake, Lizabeth Scott, and Gloria Grahame. In the next few weeks, I’ll be examining a number of female-centric entries in the film noir series: The Letter (1940) and Deception (1946) with Bette Davis, Mildred Pierce (1945) with Joan Crawford, Laura (1944) and Leave Her to Heaven (1945) with Gene Tierney, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck, Gilda (1946) with Rita Hayworth, the films of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, and many more. Watch along to learn more about the femme fatale, or check out Ann Kaplan’s Women in Film Noir.

THE HARDER THEY FALL

Mark Robson, 1956

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Rod Steiger, Jan Sterling

Eddie Willis, a famed sportswriter, is down on his luck and can’t refuse a somewhat suspicious offer for work as a boxing promoter for Nick Benko, a questionable businessman with a potentially violent history. Bento’s newest discovery, hulking Argentinian boxer Toro Moreno, is untalented, because Benko is determined to make him a star — and a cash cow. Eddie goes on tour with Toro and Benko, who makes him a partner in the business. Eddie also learns that all of Toro’s fights are fixed and he get sucked into some increasingly unsavory behavior. He soon figures out that Toro isn’t in on the fix, but the big, innocent man accidentally kills another fighter. Toro is pushed into competing in the heavyweight championship with Buddy Brannen, a man who can’t be fixed and who will beat Toro to death if he gets the chance. Will Eddie stand by and let it happen?

Sadly, this was Humphrey Bogart’s last film before he succumbed to cancer and died the rolling year. Sportswriter Eddie Willis sticks with Bogart’s easily recognizable character type: a gruff, perhaps grim, cynical man who gives up on his morals, but winds up redeeming himself in the end. Here his redemption is a case of too little, too late, which is oddly believable and adds to the film’s overall noir-like tone. Though he has clearly experienced a change of heart, it is unclear what will come to pass with his article exposing Nick’s fraud, as the film ends with Willis sitting down to the typewriter. Bogart’s age and obviously exhausted, worn down appearance take his role quite far here. His acting is subdued, but the fact that the events seem to be draining the life out of Eddie are quite fitting. He still manages to hold on to his tough guy persona and is fortunately never menaced by any of Nick’s henchmen.

The other performances are unsurprisingly flawed, particularly Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront, The Big Knife), who is rabidly over the top as Nick, chewing scenery and shouting at passersby in nearly every scene he’s in. Jan Sterling (Ace in the Hole) is given very little to do, which is a waste. Mike Lane (The Zebra Force) is likable as the quiet, naive Toro. The scenes of him boxing, particularly his final fight, are incredibly violent. It’s easy to see how this influenced later films — everything from Rocky to Raging Bull — and the brutality still packs a punch (see what I did there?). The mixture of first-person fighting shots, facial disfigurement, stark black and white, and the fact that Toro refuses to go down ensure that The Harder They Fall’s third act is its finest and most memorable.

Budd Schulberg wrote the novel that The Harder They Fall was based on, which was inspired by real events and corruption in the boxing world. While Eddie Willis is was inspired by writer and promoter Harold Conrad, Toro is based on Primo Carnera, a heavyweight champion that allegedly had mob connections. To add another layer of unsettling reality onto the film, the boxer that defeated Carnera in a controversial championship fight was Max Baer – appearing here as the ferocious champion Buddy Brannen to reenact his famous fight. Baer was no stranger to the cinema and also appeared in The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933) with the wonderful Myrna Loy. Other former boxers appeared in The Harder They Fall, including Jersey Joe Walcott in my favorite side role as George, Toro’s trainer. Also keep an eye out for Toro’s manager Luis, played by Carlos Montalban, Ricardo’s (Wrath of Khan) brother.

Director Mark Robson covered a wide range of genres throughout his career and also helmed Champion with Kirk Douglas, an earlier boxing film. While this isn’t quite as stylish as the former effort, he deftly handles all the fight scenes and really makes boxing the centerpiece of the film. Robson’s name should be better known than it is today. He made his name as an editor and helped Robert Wise with Citizen Kane. Famed RKO horror producer Val Lewton later gave Robson a shot at directing and he was responsible for one of Lewton’s finest films, The Seventh Victim, as well as several others.

The Harder They Fall is available on DVD. It comes recommended, particularly for Bogie fans and lovers of boxing films. While it may not be straightforward noir, the themes of corruption, gangsters, and blue collar violence are all crossover themes. Most importantly, The Harder They Fall’s protagonist, Eddie Willis, is a man who gives up his moral integrity and never quite manages to restore it by the end of the film. He is culpable in corruption, a friend’s murder, and the exploitation of Toro, an innocent, young, and dumb guy willing to believe anything in the name of vanity and potential financial success.

DAN CURTIS'S DRACULA

Dan Curtis, 1973

Starring: Jack Palance, Simon Ward, Nigel Davenport

Thanks to MPI, Dan Curtis’s British made-for-TV film, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1973), has finally made it to Blu-ray, complete with a restored print from the original 35mm negative and some new special features. The master of ‘70s television horror, Curtis obviously drew inspiration from his beloved series Dark Shadows, which focuses on TV’s greatest vampire, Barnabas Collins, and from Hammer’s stylish Dracula series that put an equal emphasis on blood and bosoms. Essentially the love child of Bram Stoker, Hammer horror, and Dark Shadows, Curtis’s Dracula may not be a contender for best Dracula film of all time, but is a worthy effort and does justice to horror’s most adapted novel.

Dracula follows the plot of Stoker’s novel with a few twists. Jonathan Harker travels to Count Dracula’s castle in Transylvania to facilitate the sale of Carfax Abbey in London. After seeing her picture, Dracula falls for Lucy, a friend of Harker’s wife, Mina. She looks exactly like his dead love, which is his motivation to advance quickly to London, leaving Harker trapped in the castle with Dracula’s hungry, lustful vampire brides. Lucy’s fiancé Arthur notices that she has fallen ill and contacts a specialist, Dr. Van Helsing, who recognizes the symptoms of vampirism. It is too late for Lucy, who Dracula transforms into the undead, but Van Helsing and Holmwood must rush to save the new object of Dracula’s bloodthirsty attention: Mina.

I’m a huge fan of director Dan Curtis, who produced Dark Shadows and directed Burnt Offerings, The Trilogy of Terror, The Night Stalker, and many more. Curtis fans will definitely want to pick up this Blu-ray and, if you have yet to see the film, it is a blend of some of his favorite themes. As with Dark Shadows, the main vampire is in love with a woman he believes has been reincarnated centuries later. Elements of Beauty and the Beast and The Mummy figure in, though fortunately this romantic aspect is not the all-consuming focus of the film. Unlike Francis Ford Coppola’s much later, though similarly themed Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this is not inherently a tale about redemption – it’s still about a centuries-old bloodsucker toying with his prey in a new hunting ground.

The script is from horror legend Richard Matheson, who was the first in cinema to directly relate the fictional Count Dracula to real-life Romanian tyrant Vlad Tepes. This is likely inspired by Radu Florescu and Raymond McNally’s seminal In Search of Dracula, which came out in 1972 and was the first academic study to connect these two figures. The ‘70s was a busy time for Dracula — Hammer concluded their nine-film series, Jess Franco tried his hand at adapting the tale, and John Badham directed Frank Langella in the famous 1979 version. It’s a wonder that Curtis decided to adapt Dracula at all, though he and star Jack Palance had already made a successful adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968).

Curtis and Matheson’s attempt borrows some plot elements from Hammer’s first entry, Horror of Dracula, particularly in its messy treatment of Jonathan Harker and liberties taken with some of the book’s other characters. As with the Hammer version, parts of the tale feel rushed and I can’t imagine coming to the film cold, though it’s unlikely by this point that fans weren’t familiar with the novel, the Lugosi version, or the Hammer adaptation. The idea to incorporate an actual love-interest for Dracula would have been an original one, if audiences weren’t already watching it unfold in Dark Shadows.

Jack Palance (Batman, The Barbarians) is unfortunately kind of a silly Dracula, flashing his fangs rather than relying on seduction, psychological dominance, or quiet menace. He is a hulking, imposing figure, utterly doing away with any hints that the Count is an inherently supernatural figure. Gone are the sickly mists, animal transformation, and the transfixing, hypnotic stare. While some fans may find this refreshing, he is simply too human of a villain to do justice to the original story. Palance’s fang display is particularly unfortunate; when he bears his large, pearly chompers, he just winds up looking angry, constipated, or both.

Outside of Palance, who does bring an entertaining level of cheese to the role, there are some solid performances from the other leads. Simon Ward (The Monster Club) is decent as the protagonist, Arthur, and he effortlessly replaces the whinier Jonathan Harker. Fiona Lewis (The Fearless Vampire Killers, Dr. Phibes Rises Again) is lovely as Lucy, though she’s given too little screen time and is overshadowed by Penelope Horner’s (Holocaust 2000) Mina. British horror fans will likely recognize the familiar faces of Virginia Wetherll (Curse of the Crimson Altar) and Sarah Douglas (The People That Time Forgot), who appear as Dracula’s buxom brides.

Hardcore Dracula fans may be disappointed to learn that Van Helsing is depicted as British, rather than Dutch. And though Nigel Davenport (Caravaggio) is charismatic and likable, it’s hard to picture him as a match for such a physically imposing bloodsucker. Dracula purists beware: There is no Renfield, Quincey Morris (always the first to be cut in cinematic adaptations), or Dr. Seward, and very little Jonathan Harker.

MPI have restored the film for Blu-ray using the original 35mm negative with an aspect ration of 1.78:1. It’s hard to believe that this was a made-for-TV ‘70s film, as it looks absolutely stunning and the visuals – particularly Oswald Morris’s cinematography – is one of the film’s high points. The print has a minimal, through appropriate level of grain and an explosive amount of color and detail. Shadows are occasionally overly black, though this is a minor issue.

The DTS-MA stereo track sounds vibrant and clear. The loud, occasionally bombastic score from Dark Shadows’ Bob Cobert is mixed well with the dialogue. None of the age-related hissing or crackling that I expected is present and the overall track is clear. Spanish and French language tracks are included, along with optional English SDH subtitles.

Most of the extras are from the previous DVD release, though MPI have thrown in a few new goodies. There are short interview with Palance (who claims to never have seen the film) and Curtis, as well as a trailer, a few minutes of soundless outtakes, and a few TV cuts. It would have been nice to see a Curtis documentary on either his work in TV horror or his use of cinematic vampires (he had quite a few), but the included extras are pleasing.

Lavish enough that it doesn’t look like a television production, Dan Curtis’s Dracula is an unusual entry into the canon, one that bravely attempts something original. Though I wouldn’t call it an essential film for non-Dracula addicts, fans of Curtis, Dark Shadows, and British horror will definitely want to seek it out. MPI have done an admirable job of restoring the film to a surprisingly high level of visual splendor and the Blu-ray is a must-have for serious fans of everyone’s favorite bloodsucker.

TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE

John Huston, 1948

Starring: Walter Huston, Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett

Two down on their luck men – Dobbs and Curtin – experience a number of setbacks, including being cheated out of money, meet an aged gold prospector, Howard. They travel through Mexico into the Sierra Madre mountains to look for gold and hopefully strike it rich. Though they do find gold in a mine, they must contend with bandits, a mine collapse, a wind storm, and much more. To make matters worse, none of the men trust each other, particularly not Dobbs, who becomes paranoid and begins slipping towards madness when a fourth man – an American named Cody – appears. Will they kill him? Or will they be killed by bandits – or the mountains themselves – first?

Written by director John Huston, the script is based on B. Traver’s novel of the same. This tale of obsessive greed came at a startlingly odd time – most of the men involved in the film – Bogart and Huston, in particular – were forced to testify at the HUAC hearings against suspected communists. Though Bogart was outspoken against these hearings, he eventually had to make a public statement that he was against communism and remain neutral throughout the trial, which wound up ruining the lives of ten other Hollywood men. It’s especially odd that The Treasure of Sierra Madre, a scathing indictment of capitalism, made it past the censors (all but a scene of Bogart’s decapitated head rolling through the mountains) and become one of the most influential and beloved films of all time.

Many of Huston’s films showed the debilitating effects of greed, including his first with Bogart, The Maltese Falcon (1941). In both films the object of value – the bejeweled falcon statue and the bags of gold – act as a MacGuffin for the real themes of murder, greed, and moral bankruptcy. Where I believe Treasure of the Sierra Madre has some crossovers with film noir is in its unspoken statement about the American dream. This is an outright implication of the failure and inherent corruption within the American dream itself – a literal search for gold through the America that ends in insanity and death. The “happy” ending involves prosaically abandoning treasure (and the search for it) in order to live in a village full of Mexican natives, where things are shared between the large, family-style tribe.

The noir-like themes of greed, desperation, and the ugliness of humanity are apparent in nearly every frame and not a single shot is wasted in perhaps Huston’s greatest and most economical of films. Outside of the partnership of Cody and Howard, everyone character has a “each man for himself” mentality and is out to get everyone else. This nihilism underscored by nature itself, as everything that could go wrong does. Where Howard is able to take this all in stride – ending the film regressing through civilization to a tribal lifestyle – it drives Dobbs mad. The gold, somewhat jarringly, is no one’s reward and the wind carries it back into the sand.

This mixture of noir, western, and adventure film does have some humor in it to balance out the despair and nihilism. Tragedy and irony work against each other to carry forward one of the most straightforward and yet unusual films of the period. Everything is perfect or near perfect, including the dazzlingly filthy cinematography from Ted McCord. This was one of the first Hollywood films shot outside the country and most of it was actually shot in Mexico.

The performances are some of the finest in the ‘40s. Bogart is at his most unpleasant and memorable here as Dobbs, first when he betrays his comrades and later when he gives into to paranoia and insanity. While he is often criticized as just showing up on set and being Bogart, rather than acting, this is surely the film to prove his detractors are wrong. Excellent as Bogie may be, director John Huston’s father, Walter Huston, absolutely steals the film as the tough but kindly Howard. Huston wrote the part for his father and the older man is brilliant in it. His character is whimsical, witty, and almost Buddha-like in his search for something more than the proscribed American trio of financial success, stability, and family. Bruce Bennett (Dark Passage, the Tarzan films) is also memorable as the newest member of the group, Cody, whose presence moves the film towards its bloody conclusion. Robert Blake (The Little Rascals) and John Huston both have memorable side roles and overall, every performance is excellent.

I can’t say enough good things about Treasure of the Sierra Madre and it is certainly a must-see in the annals of classic America cinema. I still can’t quite wrap my brain around the fact that Huston was able to make this film during the almost bloodthirsty anti-Communism running rampant in American during this period, which gives it a further note of delicious irony. Pick up the two-disc special edition, which comes with a number of great special featurees.

THE DESPERATE HOURS (1955)

William Wyler, 1955

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Fredric March, Martha Scott

The Hilliards – a perfectly normal, middle class family – have their day-to-day lives interrupted when three convicts invade their home one sunny morning. Composed of leader Glenn Griffin, his younger brother Hal, and the uncontrollable Sam, the three men plan to hide out in the home and wait for Griffin’s girlfriend to drop off enough money for their getaway. The money delivery keeps getting delayed and soon all four Hilliards – the parent Dan and Ellie, their 20-something daughter Cindy, and young son Ralphie – are at the mercy of the convicts. Griffin ensures Dan that if he goes for help, one of his family members will be hurt, or worse, killed.

Inspired by a real home invasion that happened to a family in Pennsylvania – The Hills – screenwriter Joseph Hayes also wrote the original novel, which was first turned into a play starring a young Paul Newman. Hayes aged the character of Griffin considerably so that Humphrey Bogart could play him in his final bad guy role. Not having seen the play, I can’t imagine the bitter and aged Griffin as anything other than a man past his prime, who has thrown caution and reason to the wind in order to make a last ditch effort to grasp the life he believes he deserves.

Suddenly, a similarly themed film starring Frank Sinatra, was made the previous year and Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker was made in 1953. The latter concerns two men on a cross-country fishing trip that are held captive by a maniac when they stop to give him a ride. It’s obvious that during this period a specific fear began to developed and fester in the American mind – the threat that the unpredictable, the mundanely evil could intrude on stable, everyday life. The villains in Suddenly, The Desperate Hours, and The Hitch-Hiker are all normal men – perhaps convicts or sociopathic killers, but they are not the cinematic monsters or gangsters of the ‘30s, or the Nazi spies or hardboiled noir criminals of the ‘40s. There is an obvious classism at play here – Griffin and his men, as well as the antagonists in the other two films, are poor and uneducated with jail time and rough childhoods, men who seemingly attack middle-class, suburban life because it will be forever out of their reach.

While watching The Desperate Hours, I was powerfully reminded of a real-life crime that would take place just two years in the future, between 1957 and 1958. Young, poor, resentful, and uneducated, Charles Starkweather grew bitter that his life in the Midwest would never rise above the poverty, squalor, or unsatisfactory professional or home life he grew up with. The 18-year-old Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, decide to change all that and take the lives they thought they deserved. After an initial, almost accidental murder, Starkweather and Fugate invaded Fugate’s home, gradually killed her family and briefly enjoyed life as homeowners. Their crime spree spread around Nebraska, taking them to the home of wealthy businessman C. Lauer Ward. After spending some time there, they killed the entire family, including the dog.

This wealth-related dissatisfaction is a central theme of The Desperate Hours. In some of the film’s most heartrending moment, the young Hal Griffin (Dewey Martin of The Thing from Another World) is exposed to the kind of life he thinks he could have had. He is kind and respectful to Cindy – in another life, she could have been his girlfriend – and looks wistfully out the window at a car full of teenagers off to have a fun night. The cleanliness and order of suburban life is essentially under attack, an order that ultimately wins out because it has pervaded all layers of life in their small town with well-manicured lawns, timely garbage men, and comfortable homes. The Hilliard home – that bastion of suburban and Middle American normalcy – was actually a movie set known as the “Paramount House,” and was used in Leave it to Beaver, a shining example of ‘50s idealism, and All That Heaven Allows, a noir-like film about suburban discontent.

Thanks to solid casting, there are a number of great performances. Interestingly, Humphrey Bogart’s career was bookended by two similar roles: as Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest, where he plays a convict holding people captive in a house, and here as Glenn Griffin, a bitter, aged, and desperate criminal at the end of his life. Bogie would die two years later from cancer. Bogart is wonderful in his final role, though the film belongs to the indomitable Fredric March. He may not be remembered by the latest generation of cinema fans, but his work in the Golden Age of Hollywood is incredible. From Les Misérables (1935) to the finest version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) to ever grace the screen, he’s quite a presence as the mild-mannered but determined Dan Hillier. With his wide shoulders, confident gait, and stately presence, he’s the perfect foil for Bogart’s small, dirty, sniveling, and growling head convict.

Robert Middleton (The Big Combo) is excellent as the hulking Sam, both childlike and menacing, hefting his weight around the frame and fixing his attention on the ever-changing object of his desires: children’s toys, food, alcohol, Cindy, or murdering the trash truck driver. His explosive violence and unpredictable nature adds a level of necessary tension between the three criminals that keeps both the Hilliards and viewers on their toes.

Sadly the women of the film are underwhelming, partly because their staid roles require them to be lovely, well-dressed, and passive. Martha Scott (Ben-Hur) is a solid and not overly hysterical presence as Mrs. Hilliard and Mary Murphy (she plays a similar character in The Wild One) provides a bit of fire as Cindy, though she is mostly controlled by the men around her. Griffin’s girlfriend, who plays a major role in the plot of the film, disappointingly never makes an appearance. Thanks to a strong script and expert directing from the great William Wyler, the suspense increases throughout the film. It uniquely manages to avoid a dull second act and includes a number of minor subplots, such as Cindy’s boyfriend and his rocky relationship with the family, the potential that Sam will rape Cindy, Glenn and Hal’s troubled relationship, and so on. While Wyler is often remembered for a number of fantastic romantic comedies – Roman Holiday, How to Steal a Million, Funny Girl – he shares a trait in common with the similarly named Billy Wilder. Both directors crossed a wide range of genres and Wyler was responsible for some great suspense movies and films noir, including The Letter, Detective Story, and The Collector.

The Desperate Hours is available on DVD and comes recommended. It stands as an early example of a sub-genre – the home invasion film – that would increase in popularity over the years, churning out classics in nearly every decade: The Virgin Spring (1960), Straw Dogs (1971), Fatal Attraction (1987), Funny Games (1997), and many more. Clearly this is a fear that has stayed with the American public, but which has subtly shifted throughout the years.