Mandalay

Mandalay is a relic of Hollywood's pre-code era, back when you could get away with shit like adultery and blasphemy and abortion and drugs and theft and whoring and murder and saying things like "toilet" and "double bed."

The the Hays Code came along and you had to be punished or repent, preferably both. But, before then, we had movies like Mandalay, where our heroine lives in sin, becomes a prostitute... and continues from there.

During the 30s, Kay Francis was on the covers of all of the movie magazines, but she's relatively forgotten today.  It's too bad: While many of her films don't hold up over time, she does. Her demeanor is low-key and, if anything, she underacts, but she serves glamour like no one's business. Francis wears clothes like Dietrich or Dovima.

Not only can she make the most tricky of outfits seem like something she just threw on, she also has the grace and savoir-faire that could make a backless sequinned gown seem occasion-appropriate to a PTA meeting. I mean, it makes perfect sense that Kay Francis would pay a visit to the police station while wearing a floor-length white gown, a hat with a two-foot brim and a fan that unfurls to about a yard wide.

So, we open with Kay--here Tanya Borodoff--on a boat with Ricardo Cortez, her no-good, gun-running lover. He may look great in a white linen suit, but he's a terminal loser who can't pull off a deal. But Kay worships the ground he walks upon....

I believe it was Bessie Smith who said that there's nothing as dangerous as a man who knows how much you love him. It may not have been her words but, regardless, truer ones were never spoken. As Kay Francis is about to learn....

So Sleazebag Boyfriend takes Kay to the Jardin d' Orient nightclub in Rangoon, where he introduces her around to a variety of shady characters, including Nick, who owns the joint and the Countess, who's the resident hostess/madam, as well as some leering old guys in tuxedos. Then Sleazebag trades Kay Francis to Nick for a few cases of machine guns. That's an ammosexual for ya: Whether it's 20 grade-school kids or the woman you love, nothing's quite as important....

Kay sulks and hunger strikes, albeit in a lovely room with a gorgeous carved bed. Then the Countess gives her some wise advice..

Kay Francis decides to do precisely that, making a killer entrance into the Jardin d'Orient that lets everyone know who's the most precious piece of ass in all of Asia--fuck, perhaps the entire Eastern hemisphere...

We then get a too-brief montage of Kay Francis changing outfits, accepting gifts, drinking cocktails and playing torch songs--okay, the same torch song, over and over--on the piano for an adoring audience of men.

Kay Francis is now calling herself "Spot White" for reasons i'm unsure of--Because she always wears white? Because she's one of the few white chicks working the club? Because she's a White Russian? Because she drinks White Russians? No matter.

She gets hauled down to the police station, prompting a fantastic scene in which an utterly blase Kay Francis not only doesn't get deported, but winds up sashaying away with 10,000 of the police chief's rupees to buy herself out of the Jardin d'Orient with enough left over for a nice cabin on the next boat to Mandalay and a new wardrobe of ladylike white clothes. Kay Francis was apparently applying the "if i wear all white, i will look less trampy" philosophy long before Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings  Twice...

Of course, as she's unpacking, she drops her framed photo of Sleazeball Boyfriend--Wait, why did she have that? I've been known to forgive a man anything (twice) but even i would give the Soviet wiped-from-history treatment to anyone who sold me into prostitution. Anyway, she cuts herself on the glass and the cabin boy runs to the bar and gets a doctor there to come look at it and, woohoo, meet cute. Well, kind of. It doesn't take long before he reveals that he's an alcoholic who once operated drunk and killed someone, so he's going off to some colony where everyone has the plague so he can do penance and probably die. She, of course, hears this and immediately wants to come with him....

“We’re two wrecked people. We need each other.”

But wait! Guess who else is on the boat? Why, Sleazeball Boyfriend, of course. He sneaks into Kay Francis' cabin, but she brushes him off. Although first she stares meaningfully at the bottle of wound cleaner or whatever the doctor left her, helpfully labeled  POISON in big letters. But then it seems Sleazeball Boyfriend disappears--having taken the bottle of POISON and fallen/jumped/was pushed off the boat. Everyone suspects Kay Francis of murder...

 

... but then they find not only Sleazeball Boyfriend's suicide note, but a note someone had sent warning him that the cops were waiting for him in Mandalay. Phew! But then Sleazeball Boyfriend returns! he just faked his own death and, well, if it almost got her arrested for murder, that's oke, toots! He's also heard how successful Kay Francis was peddling it and he has this great idea that they'll open up their own whorehouse. Then he can quit running guns and just pimp her out full-time...

... and Kay Francis thinks, "You know, everybody believes this guy is already dead." What will  Kay
Francis do?

As the great Bebe Zahara Benet once said, "I give face, face, face..." 

Mandalay is just over an hour long, which is fine by me: There's no bullshit subplots, no droning on with dialogue, no stupid twists to pad out the running time. It also seems like a film that could have starred Marlene Dietrich--white Russian adventuress who becomes queen of a Far East brothel and then avenges herself on the man who wronged her... it's kind of like Shanghai Express meets Dishonored. Hell, Mandalay even has Warner Oland white slave-ing Kay Francis two years after he attempted to do the same with Dietrich in Express. There's also more than a touch of The Shangahi Gesture here as well....

As for Kay Francis herself, she once said, "When I die, I want to be cremated so that no sign of my existence is left on this earth. I can't wait to be forgotten." Francis was always underwhelmed by fame--it seems she never really intended to be an actress but, sort of wandered into it on a combination of beauty, style and being in the right place at the right time. Francis' interests were chiefly men, booze and travel and she saw movie stardom as a way to get away with it--not unlike those two other legendary existential beauties, Ava Gardner or Louise Brooks. While she may not be quite as iconic as those ladies, Kay Francis is still worth another look...

The Return of Dr. X.

Every actor has something on the resume they're not exactly proud of. Elizabeth Taylor has Butterfield 8, Bette Davis has Beyond the Forest, Christopher Lee and Nicholas Cage have a few of their own. Hey, we've all taken a bad gig while struggling, or did it for the paycheck because we wanted a vacation or a dinosaur skull or a backyard water park. But there are some actors we consider beyond such things....

... like you'd never think Humphrey Bogart played a zombie or a mad scientist or a zombie mad scientist. But, well, you've never seen The Return of Dr. X. No relation to Dr. X.--it's not a sequel--or to The Revenge of Dr. X., which was written by Ed Wood and is only marginally worse.

So the upshot is that this really annoying intrepid reporter type--played by Wayne Morris as an annoying goofball dork with highwater pants and his fedora flipped up like a hayseed--is trying to interview a famous actress. You can tell she's a famous actress because she lives  in a luxury hotel, wears satin negligees and has a pet monkey and a indiscriminately foreign accent. She is played by Lya Lys, better known from her role in Bunuel's L'Age d'Or. Hey, surrealist manifestos don't pay the bills, aight?

However, when Intrepid Reporter gets to her suite, Famous Actress is dead. Stabbed. Intrepid Reporter prints the story that Famous Actress is dead. Doesn't tell the hotel manager, doesn't call the cops, just leaves the body and informs the authorities with a front-page headline. Of course, Famous Actress turns up, quite pale but very much alive and threatening to sue. But then another body drained of a rare blood type--the same as Famous Actress--turns up and Intrepid Reporter busts into the hospital where he makes friends with Random Doctor.

And just when Random Doctor sends off Intrepid Reporter with the orders to "come back when you sober up" (But he's not drunk; he's just stupid.), Random Doctor is promptly summoned to another hotel room with a dead body, this time "a professional donor," also of the same rare blood type. 

Another blood spot is found at the crime scene, but "It's not... human." Which leads Intrepid Reporter to figure it must be a -- "Gorilla murder... Aw, Mike, if you can figure that one out we'll have a front-page spread on every newspaper in the country for weeks!" (Gorilla murder, Donald Trump candidacy--tomato, tomahto, same difference.) But it's not gorilla, or even animal, so Random Doctor goes to visit a hematologist colleague of his, Dr. Flake. It is here he meets Humphrey Bogart as Kang, apparently Dr, Flake's Renfield figure.

Dr. Flake gives Random Doctor the brush-off and he leaves. Shortly thereafter, Famous Actress arrives, makeup gun apparently set on Three-Day Drunk Elvira, begs Dr. Flake and Kang for help and passes out. All of this is witnessed through a window by Intrepid Reporter.

Rosemary Lane pops up as Joan, Intrepid Reporter's girlfriend who is only present because apparently she's some kind of Uber. Also to prevent us from assuming the obvious about Intrepid Reporter and Random Doctor. (She doesn't and, yes, we've already assumed it about Flake and Kang as well.)

I didn't know Dave Vanian's dad was a butler but, really, it makes perfect sense.

Neither of these men are at all creepy. Which is why Famous Actress still has them for her doctors. And probably why Famous Actress winds up dead. Again. For real this time.

So, yadda yadda yadda, it turns out that Flake is doing experiments raising rabbits and humans from the dead. Among his experiments: Kang, who is actually the feared Dr. X. who was "that skunk who wanted to see how long babies could go without eatin'" and subsequently got the chair. There's some poking around in funeral homes and graveyards and they finally go back to see Dr. Flake who is all like "Hell, yeah, I brought an electrocuted baby murderer back from the dead and am now draining human blood to keep him alive. What?" Of course then Kang reappears and demands the vampire rolodex of people with the magic blood type he needs.  Of course one of them is Joan the Uber-Beard. And off we go...

Bear in mind that this film was released in 1939, long cited as the greatest year in cinema history. The year of Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Ninotchka, The Women, Destry Rides Again, Laughton's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dark Victory ... and The Return of Dr. X. Ultimately, The Return of Dr. X. is an unremarkable C-grade horror movie that's not particularly horrifying at all. It's sole distinction is the slumming appearance as a zombie mad scientist sorta vampire from one of the most respected and iconic stars of all time.

 

* Also, i found out in the credits that it's apparently Dr. Flegg and his assistant Quesne. Whatever.
I'm sticking with Flake and Kang.

The Black Cat

Karloff vs. Lugosi. Need i say more?

Can i at least add that Edgar G. Ulmer is refereeing ? The dismaying duo made eight films together, six of them under the legendary auspices of Universal Pictures in its glory days. The Black Cat is probably the best among them -- the plot gets a little dicey, but its got atmosphere, aesthetics and two of the most charismatic stars in horror film history.

I somehow feel like this film is very dear to Peter Murphy's heart. I have visions of him and Daniel Ash in their art school days, cuddled up in someone's bedsit after band practice, watching The Black Cat on the telly, eating popcorn and drinking absinthe and painting each others' nails black. (I don't know if i can go far enough to conjure up them quarreling over who gets to be Bela like we used to argue over who got to be Kelly Garrett when i was a little girl in the suburbs... Actually, i never got to have that argument: As the blonde, i was automatically Farrah.)

So, we begin with a young couple on their honeymoon in the forests of Eastern Europe. Because that is not asking for trouble. (Oh, Brad! Oh, Janet! Oh, those dumbasses in Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf!) But maybe they're Twitards and are hoping for a vampire honeymoon. There's a knock on their train compartment door and their wishes are granted, as a famous bloodsucker steps across the threshold...

Dammit! We expected that dead-eyed pouty girl whose only personal recommendation is that Joan Jett wanted to fuck her. Or at least that guy who puts lube in his hair. But never you mind, for Bela Lugosi is not a vampire at all! (Please stop and reread this part in your Count von Count voice.) He is actually Dr. Vitus Werdegast, a psychiatrist who is returning home after fifteen years in a Russian prison camp! (Shit, that might be even scarier than coming back from the grave! Go back and read that in the Count von Count voice too.)

So, they get off the train to get on the bus. because you want to be taking a bus through the Carpathian Mountains in the middle of the night. In a torrential downpour. On your honeymoon...

Nope, didn't see any of that coming. We also expected the craggy rock and the gravestones and the need to take shelter in the spooky palace, but not that said spooky palace would be more Chrysler Building than Medieval castle. And it is this palace that will dominate the style of the The Black Cat: Everything is sleek and gorgeous, down to the bedside clocks. The aesthetic is a hybrid of German Expressionism and Streamline Moderne -- asymmetrical angles and skewed perspectives combined with chrome fixtures and glass bricks.

It's more than just the meticulously sleek aesthetic that unifies The Black Cat -- it also has an all-pervasive soundtrack that backs almost all of the actions. It's the best use of Beethoven's Fifth since Demy's Lola, although the "Moonlight" Sonata may be familiar from your favorite TV soap opera....

Things you may not have known about Boris Karloff. One, his real name was Billy Pratt and he was British. Two, so British indeed that he stopped every shoot he was on for four o'clock tea. Three, he was known as an animal lover and much loved by animals, including his pet pig, Violet. Four, not only loved by animals, but loved by the ladies, with Karloff having five (Or was it six? Or seven? No one is quite sure...) wives and widely rumored to be, erm, gifted in the same way as Frank Sinatra and Milton Berle. Five, he helped found the Screen Actors' Guild.

As far as Lugosi... did you know he played Vegas once? In a variety show at the Silver Slipper?

So, anyway, it seems that Lugosi holds a bit of a grudge against Karloff. It seems they were soldiers together in some random Eastern European war. And it seems that Karloff was the commander of their fort and sold Lugosi and 9,999 of his comrades in arms out to the Russians. And it seems Lugosi wound up in that prison camp. And somewhere in there Karloff stole Lugosi's wife. And then Karloff built a luxe moderne mansion on the site of his murderous treachery. Just minor shit that can cause awkwardness between old pals....

Did we mention that he's a devil-worshiper, as revealed by his bedtime reading...

Also, down in Boris' basement, there are a number of women hanging in glass boxes...

One of these ladies in the bias-cut nightgowns and the display case is -- well, was -- Lugosi's wife.You'd think this sight would be Lugosi's cue to off Karloff -- as if that whole traitor/war criminal/Satanist thing wasn't enough. But Lugosi is still hanging around. He makes some noise about waiting for his revenge, to which i can only say: Karloff's gotta sleep sometime. Sure, maybe you've got some kind of operation planned that combines the best effects of a Rube Goldeberg machine and a Jacobean revenger's tragedy. Nice and all but, really: Just kill the motherfucker in his sleep, burn the house down and get on with your life.

They do make some vaguely allusive excuses about Lugosi's obsessive phobia of black cats (the sole nod to the Poe tale that this film is ostensibly based on). He also pronounces that "this place is so undermined with dynamite that the slightest move by any of us could be the destruction of us all." Um, okay. So don't burn the house down. Quick dead-of-night smothering and you're off...

Despite the passivity of the Prince of Darkness, things do accelerate pretty quickly from there. Karloff decides to kidnap Miss Newlywed for his NRFB collection. And maybe she'd also be useful at that demon-summoning shindig he's having Friday night...

Back when people used to really dress for a Satanic ritual.

Oh, and it seems that Karloff has married Lugosi's daughter, who has a great set of hair extensions and seems to be tranq-ed out of her gourd. Bela discovers this, finally snaps and...

Oh, this can't end well....

Suffice to say, vengeance is finally had. Today's torture-porn merchants would make a protracted blood orgy of it, but The Black Cat would do nothing so unimaginative and tacky. Seeing the poised, icy Lugosi go gibbering psycho and the stoic, domineering Karloff weak with fear is enough. Sometimes, when it comes to horror, the old ways are the best. But, of course, we don't have Karloffs or Lugosis to work with anymore either.

As Lugosi himself intones, "Supernatural... perhaps. Bologna... perhaps not."