Movie-a-Day week Four, part two
Three more capsules, with still more on the way!
22: Teenage Doll (1957;USA) D: Roger Corman W: Charles B. Griffith
Dang, it's still 1957! Big year for teenagers. This time the director is the great Roger Corman (one of nine films he directed that year) and the script is by the under-appreciated Charles B. Griffith (A Bucket of Blood, Little Shop of Horrors, Death Race 2000). As the opening title card says: "This is not a pretty picture... It couldn't be pretty and still be true!" Teenaged Barbara (June Kenney of Earth Vs. the Spider and Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage To the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent) is involved in the death of a member of the girl gang known as the Black Widows, and must run for her life as the gang attempts to hunt her down for revenge. A cavalcade of deserted alleyways, broken homes, sleazy opportunists and slow-boiling violence ensues. Barbara flees her home, and heads for the junkyard hideout of the Vandals, in the belief that gang leader Eddie might give a rat's ass about her. The Widows, knowing she'll head for Eddie, try to scrounge enough money to buy her from him, harnaguing, stealing from or even blackmailing family members to get it. In the meantime, the dead girl's body continues to lie in a puddle in the alley where she died. Brutal stuff, laced with pitch-black humor and played with conviction and energy (with some occasional overstatement). Featuring Bruno VeSota (The Giant Leeches) as a greedy drunk, Barboura Morris (A Bucket of Blood) and Sandra Smith, who would later switch minds with William Shatner in the “Turnabout Intruder” episode of Star Trek. (DVD rental)
23: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993;USA/Hong Kong) D&W: Stuart Gillard
This one is kittykatya 's fault. “It's better than the second one” she said, which make me shudder to think what that one is like. Not that this is awful, exactly. Production values are professional, ans the intentions of the people making the film don't seem cynical, unlike those of the production companies (the intentions of film producers are almost always cynical.) After the Turtles' pal April (Paige Turco, from “American Gothic”) is whisked back to feudal Japan by a mystic doohickey, the Turtles follow, and help save the people from a corrupt daimyo (Sab Shimono, the voice of Uncle on “Jackie Chan Adventures”) being egged on (and supplied with arms) by a shady English mercenary (Stuart Wilson, of Hot Fuzz). Some decent action scenes and far too much lame humor ensue. This is the sort of kid's comedy that involves lots of dubbed in cultural references, so that there is not a moment of blissful silence throughout the film. (I'm curious about when the notion of “not a moment's silence” became the standard for kids' films in the US, but I can't face the prospect of watching that many noisily condescending movies. Even I have my limits.) An inconsequential movie which won't scar your kids for life or anything, but unless they ask for it, why bother? (Borrowed DVD)
24: Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (1938;USA) D: Norman Foster W: Lou Breslow and John Patrick, Story by Norman Foster and Willis Cooper
The fourth Moto film finds our mysterious hero posing as an archaeologist in a tiny (fictional) French-controlled Asian country somewhere in the vicinity of Angkor Wat (which makes a very brief stock footage appearance.) Female aerialist Vicki Mason (the lovely Rochelle Hudson, formerly the voice of Honey in the Bosko cartoons) deliberately crashes her plane in the middle of an around-the-world flight, and becomes a guest of the local Rajah (J. Edward Bromberg, Charlie Chan on Broadway) who's not as dumb as he appears. High priest of Siva (sic) Bokor (George Regas, Torchie Blaine in Panama) disapproves of foreign interlopers, but two more show when a couple of cameramen filming jungle stock footage (the best excuse to use jungle stock footage ever) show up, attracted by the plane crash. Marty (Rober Kent, Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo) falls for Vicki, and Chick (Chick Chandler, Maisie Goes to Reno) attempts to provide comedy relief. There's a hidden supply of smuggled arms in the local forbidden temple, someone murders the Rajah's wife with a poisoned dart, a mysterious old priest from the Himalayas appears, and Moto keep sending carrier pigeons to... who? One thing the film does right is keep you guessing as to what everyone is up to. Unfortunately, the pacing drags at times (sad for a 63 minute movie) but there is a swell action climax with just about all the characters ending up inside the temple. Moto kills far more people than any of the bad guys do. The film is middling fun, marred by a greater than usual condescension to the “natives.” Apparently this is the least of the Moto films, so I should have no trouble going on from here. I see on the imdb where Rochelle Hudson played “The White Goddess” in The Savage Girl in 1932. Another film to hunt for, then. (DVD rental)