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 Seventh Victim

Screw your torture porn: Give me the slowly building menace of a Val Lewton horror every time.

 The Seventh Victim is part of the series of darkly brilliant films Lewton produced for RKO. One would ask why a film now seen as a classic by a revered writer/producer would qualify as craptacular, but bear in mind that RKO was considered a bit of a second-class studio and this was horror back in an era where the genre was second-class by definition.

The Seventh Victim initially may seem like a conventional whodunnit--well, more accurately, a whereisshe--but it's got a deep streak of nihilism and a sense of doom hangs over it from the start, and not just because it opens with a trip to the principal's office. Our heroine, Mary, is summoned by the Head Dyke in Charge at her boarding school to be told that her tuition hasn't been paid and her older sister is missing. HDIC offers to let her stay on and work for her room and board but, as she leaves, HDIC's timid femme companion warns her: "Don't come back. No matter if you never find your sister. No matter what happens to you."

Mary makes her way to New York City and begins searching for her sister. She goes to the missing persons office of existential despair, where she runs across a rather weasely private eye type. 

She goes to the cosmetics company/spa that her sister owned to find that it's apparently been sold. The new Head  Dyke in Charge claims to have no idea where her sister is--but, as we saw back at school, behind every HDIC is a timid little femme who's willing to provide some information...

In a small Italian restaurant on Perry Street (the likes of which have been completely gentrified out of New York) she meets the couple who own the restaurant and who knew her sister , as well as writer's block-ed poet Jason. The latter joins in her search, the former spend a lot of time pouring wine and espresso and saying vague and wise things. (Definitely more useful in times of crisis.)

Mary also runs across Gregory, her sister's lawyer... and husband. She also makes the acquaintance of Jacqueline's psychiatrist, Dr. Louis Judd, who is played by Tom Conway. If Tom Conway seems like an ersatz George Sanders, it's because he's Sanders' younger brother. Dr. Judd has the same name and a similar demeanor as the psychiatrist in Lewton's Cat People--although Judd dies in Cat People, so we must assume that The Seventh Victim happens earlier in the Lewtonverse.

 

Another thing that happens often in the Lewtonverse is the "night walk," in which a character walks alone through darkened streets as suspense mounts and several false surprises are launched before the final, actual shock. We get several of them in The Seventh Victim, as Mary and Jacqueline each take their tense nocturnal stroll through the city.

 

Another constant from the Lewtonverse is the presence of Elizabeth Russell, who also appeared in Lewton's Cat People, Curse of the Cat People and Bedlam. Here she plays Mimi, a neighbor who is doing the slow fade from consumption.

Mary's search for her sister is mostly your classic hero's journey, recast as a noir film about a teenage girl's coming of age with a side dish of supernatural horror. Mary ventures into the big city, meets various allies and opponents, thinks of turning back but instead adapts to her new surroundings and plunges forward. She's played by Kim Hunter, who would earn an Academy Award as Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire and later play Zira in Planet of the Apes.

 

After some night walks and much fussing amongst the gentlemen, we discover that the "exciting and unforgettable" Jacqueline had fallen in with a group called the Palladists. Has she disappeared, or is she just hiding? And if she's hiding, where? And from who?

Jacqueline, with her black bangs, black fur coat and eternal pessimism--"I've always wanted to die"--is goth as all get out and clearly the coolest chick in the film. She's a bit like a cynical, death-bent Blanche DuBois wearing Bettie Page's hair and Louise Brooks' perfume. She is played by Jean Brooks aka Jeanne Kelly aka Ruby Kelly aka Robina Duarte--she changed stage names a lot after being discovered by Erich Von Stroheim while she was singing in the lounge at the Waldorf-Astoria. She made another Val Lewton film, The Leopard Man, but mostly worked in westerns and horror flicks, eventually dying of complications from alcoholism at 47.

But back to the film! It seems that "Palladist" is just a schmancy word for devil-worshipper. However, this group of Satanists isn't sacrificing babies or tormenting peasants or unleashing hordes of maggots--they're a pretty ordinary-seeming bunch, but their normalcy makes them even more chilling. Because it never is the fire-breathing horned monster that gets you: It's being ground down by the incessant nagging, the peer pressure, the adherence to nonsensical rules...

So much more enigmatic and chic than that silly pentagram-goat's head thing....

Like any fine art film, nightclub or romance, The Seventh Victim is all atmosphere and philosophy. It is said that when a RKO exec chided Val Lewton about films with messages, Lewton responded, "Our film does have a message and the message is: Death is good!"

Like all of Lewton's films, The Seventh Victim was under-appreciated in its time, but has since grown in influence and prestige: There are echoes this film in Psycho, Rosemary's Baby and numerous lesser flicks. It's not horror in the maniacs with machetes sense, but its eerie atmosphere and gloomy outlook will haunt you long after the credits have rolled.

Las Vegas Schlock

Here's a link to three brief writeups on Vegas-set B-movies I did for my day job at the Vegas Seven. There's the Mamie Van Doren 50s heist flick, Guns, Girls and Gangsters. Then a piece of absolute crap from the 80s, a tale of showgirls turned mercenary commandos, Hell Squad. Finally, a little 90's indie downerdom, Speedway Junky, in which a runaway hits Vegas, gets rolled and becomes a hustler.

Want to go for the gold standard of bad movies? Enjoy a timeline of how Showgirls went from hype to flop to cult classic. Of course, if you like movies that are actually good, here's an oral history of the shooting of Casino. And, finally, you can take the Vegas movie quiz.

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.