Bruce Kogan is back to review another film. I have to admit I have never of 1951's Once A Thief but after reading this review I want to see it now!
Cesar Romero and June Havoc star in this shoestring B film about a woman who falls for the wrong guy and both pay for it in the end.
June Havoc plays a waitress in a Los Angeles beanery who's been around the block a few times and sets in motion a train of events when she feels sorry for Marie McDonald when she can't pay her bill and gets her a job at her place of work.
McDonald barely escaped from a heist she was in on up north and she's wanted. Romero is a flashy small time crook who runs a bookmaking parlor with Lon Chaney, Jr. in back of Chaney's tailor shop.
All three, Romero, Havoc, and Chaney are in parts that they would have gotten more critical acclaim for had they been at a major studio for this film. Romero who was usually second leads and/or romantic rival of the leading man really shows some acting chops in this part. Chaney also showed he was capable of more than the horror films Universal Pictures put him in.
As for Havoc she spent most of her career on the stage, but her film appearances were in mostly B films. She's the hardboiled dame in love with the wrong guy and great at the part.
Fans of all three of these people, this dental floss budget film should not be missed by any of you...
BRUCE'S RATING: 5 OUT OF 10 MY RATING: HAVE NOT SEEN YET!
Lon Chaney Jr. died on this day - July 12th some 45 years ago. Chaney was only 67. He was one of the most emblematic horror film stars of the 1940s. Though given the name "Creighton Chaney" by his parents, he took the name "Lon Chaney, Jr." at the behest of a producer who wished to capitalize on the reputation of his father, who had starred in such silent classics as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Phantom of the Opera."
After playing a number of small, forgettable roles through the 1930s, the younger Chaney's first role of note was 'Lenny Small' in the 1939 film adaptation of John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." This role made great use of Chaney's size and empathetic manner, and would remain his favorite. He followed this with an even greater success, playing the title character in 1941's "The Wolf Man." His performance, which echoed his own life as a prodigal son figure returning home only to find tragedy, came as his father's studio, Universal Pictures, was struggling to reestablish itself as the premier studio for horror films. Universal would cast Chaney in a string of sequels to both "The Wolf Man" and it's classic films of the 1930s.
All in all, Chaney would end up playing the Wolf Man five times, the barely mobile mummy Kharis three times, the Frankenstein Monster once (and again, briefly, in perhaps the best of Universal's long run of sequels, 1948's "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" when Glenn Strange was incapacitated), and Dracula once. He would also star in Universal's "Inner Sanctum" series and a number of lesser thrillers through the 1940s. Though the films were always entertaining, and Chaney almost always made a great effort to imbue his performances with quality, the formulaic nature of these productions concealed his ability, and he became typecast as a "monster."
Chaney's last roles of note were as a supporting player in both 1952's "High Noon" (starring Gary Cooper) and 1958's "The Defiant Ones" with Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier. More often, he would play in a number of low-budget films, mostly westerns and horror films, often reprising his roles from the glory days at Universal. Always a heavy drinker, he would die from various alcohol-related ailments after playing his last role, fittingly enough a non-speaking part in the 1971 farce "Dracula vs. Frankenstein.". His body was dedicated to medical science...
Noah Hawley, the creator of the Fargo television series, Aaron Guzikowski, the scribe behind the gritty Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal movie Prisoners, and Ed Solomon, the veteran screenwriter behind Men in Black and Now You See Me, have joined Chris Morgan and Alex Kurtzman to act as a writers collective for Universal Studios' cinematic monster universe.
The plan is for these "Monster Men" to act akin to Pixar's brain trust, or more aptly, like a well-oiled television writers room, where all will have a hand in each other's movies and offer help as needed as they work on a model of serialized storytelling.
As part of the move, Guzikowski will take the lead writing The Wolfman, a new take on the classic werewolf tale that will hopefully relaunch a franchise and also weave in with the movies of the other monster characters. Hawley and Solomon have yet to take point on projects as the plan is still unfolding.
Morgan and Kurtzman, notable scribes in their own right, are producing the monster movies.
The Mummy will be the first movie out of the monster universe gate, with Kurtzman behind the camera and a June 24, 2015, release date. Other planned movies revolve around the characters of Dracula, Frankenstein, the Invisible Man, the Bride of Frankenstein and vampire hunter Van Helsing.
It’s not clear what the order for the movies will be nor what stages of development the projects are in, although Universal has staked out Friday, April 21, 2017, for its second monster franchise film.
Wolfman is one of the studio’s legacy characters. His first screen appearance was in 1941’s The Wolf Man, directed by George Waggner with Lon Chaney Jr. as the man who is cursed to howl at the full moon and Claude Rains as his father.
Several lesser movies followed. The character made a splashy return in 2010 with Benicio Del Toro in the title role, Emily Blunt as his love interest and Anthony Hopkins as his father. The pricey picture was plagued with production problems and whined its way to only $61 million domestically.
Plot details for the revamp are being kept locked in a kennel.
Guzikowski also wrote Contraband, the hit action movie starring Mark Wahlberg that Universal distributed. He is in production of season two of his Sundance channel show The Red Road,which stars Jason Momoa....
Here are some more interesting events that happened in movie history during this week:
July 28, 1928: Encouraged by the response to the few minutes of sound in The Jazz Singer, Warner Bros. releases Lights of New York, the first all-talking picture.
July 28, 1948: Lon Chaney, Jr. and Bela Lugosi play the Wolf Man and Dracula, respectively, for the last time onscreen in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
July 27, 1950: George Pal's Destination Moon, one of the first films to offer a serious look at space exploration, opens.
July 25, 1952: High Noon, the western that would garner Gary Cooper an Oscar for his performance as the retired sheriff faced with a fateful showdown, opens.
July 28, 1954: Seen by many as an answer to critics of his 1952 HUAC testimony, director Elia Kazan's "informer" drama On the Waterfront opens.
July 29, 1957: James Whale, director of the horror staples Frankenstein and The Invisible Man, is found drowned in his swimming pool at age 67.
July 26, 1960: Art director Cedric Gibbons, who took home the Oscar statuette (which he designed) 11 times, dies at the age of 67.
July 30, 1966: With all of the "BIFF! POW! SOCK!" of the campy TV show, Batman, starring Adam West, makes his first film appearance since 1943.
July 28, 1978: National Lampoon's Animal House, starring John Belushi, opens and quickly finds a huge youth audience.
July 27, 1983: Tom Cruise teaches audiences the fine art of dancing in one's underwear in the hit comedy Risky Business.
July 28, 1991: Paul Reubens, aka Pee-wee Herman, is arrested in Sarasota, Fla., for indecent behavior in an adult movie theater.
July 28, 1995: Star Kevin Costner's aquatic sci-fi tale Waterworld, reportedly the first $200 million film, opens to less than a flood of ticketbuyers.
July 24, 1998: Director Steven Spielberg and star Tom Hanks acquaint a new generation with the drama and sacrifice of World War II in Saving Private Ryan.
1939 was an epic year for the American cinema. So many top notch performances were given in that year, it is a shame that the movie industry of today is not looking back at what was done right in 1939. One movie released in 1939 that had everything going for it was OF MICE AND MEN. The film was based on the novella of the same title by American author John Steinbeck. It stars Burgess Meredith, Betty Field, Lon Chaney, Jr., Charles Bickford, Roman Bohnen, Bob Steele and Noah Beery, Jr. It was unfortunately remade in 1992.
The film tells the story of how the lead characters, George and Lennie, try to pursue their dream of owning their own ranch instead of working always for other people.
The film, produced by the Hal Roach Studios, was adapted by Eugene Solow and directed by Lewis Milestone. It was nominated for four Oscars. The musical score was by American composer Aaron Copland.
Two migrant field workers in California during the Great Depression—George Milton (Burgess Meredith), an intelligent and cynical man, and Lennie Small (Lon Chaney, Jr.), an ironically-named man of large stature and immense strength but limited mental abilities—come to a ranch near Soledad southeast of Salinas, California to "work up a stake." They hope to one day attain their shared dream of settling down on their own piece of land. Lennie's part of the dream, which he never tires of hearing George describe, is merely to tend to (and touch) soft rabbits on the farm. George protects Lennie at the beginning by telling him that if Lennie gets into trouble George won't let him "tend them rabbits." They are fleeing from their previous employment in Weed where they were run out of town after Lennie's love of stroking soft things resulted in an accusation of attempted rape when he touched a young woman's dress.
At the ranch, the dream appears to move closer to reality. Candy (Roman Bohnen), the aged, one-handed ranch-hand, even offers to pitch in with Lennie and George so they can buy the farm by the end of the month. The dream crashes when Lennie accidentally kills the young and attractive wife (Betty Field) of Curley (Bob Steele), the ranch owner's son, while trying to stroke her hair. A lynch mob led by Curley gathers. George, realizing he is doomed to a life of loneliness and despair like the rest of the migrant workers and wanting to spare Lennie a painful death at the hands of the vengeful and violent Curley, shoots Lennie in the back of the head before the mob can find him after George gives him one last retelling of their dream of owning their own land.
When the film was first released Frank S. Nugent, the film critic of The New York Times praised the film and the acting, writing, "And New York, unless we have miscalculated again, will endorse its film version, at the Roxy, as heartily as it has endorsed the film of the Joads. The pictures have little in common as narrative, but they have much in common as art; the same deft handling of their material, the same understanding of people, the same ability to focus interest sharply and reward it with honest craftsmanship and skill...No small share of that credit belongs to the men and the one young woman Hal Roach has recruited for his production. Miss Field has added stature to the role of the foreman's wife by relieving her of the play's box-office-conscious order that she behave like a hoyden.
The staff at Variety magazine also reviewed the film favorably, writing, "Under skillful directorial guidance of Lewis Milestone, the picture retains all of the forceful and poignant drama of John Steinbeck's original play and novel, in presenting the strange palship and eventual tragedy of the two California ranch itinerants. In transferring the story to the screen, scripter Eugene Solow eliminated the strong language and forthright profanity. Despite this requirement for the Hays whitewash squad, Solow and Milestone retain all of the virility of the piece in its original form."
The 1939 classic was was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Sound Recording, Best Musical Score, and Best Original Score, but it did not win a single award. The movie is some 72 years old, but for the acting of Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney Jr alone it is worth dusting off this old movie, making some popcorn, and enjoying a truly great movie of classic cinema...
Even though the much hyped remake of THE WOLF MAN recently came out, there is no movie that compares to the 1941 version starring Lon Chaney Jr. The movie is not the greatest when it comes to special effects, but it was just a good horror movie. It deserves to be remembered alongside the original Dracula and Frankenstein movies. Rounding out the cast of THE WOLF MAN was Claude Rains and Bela Lugosi...
