A Visual History of Pipes in Movies, pt 3

Kentucky Fried Popcorn presents a visual history of the role of pipes in movies.  What other choice could I make for the 40's but film noir?

Part Three - The 1940's

Come to the Stable (1949)

NetFlix N/A
YouTube Link
IMDB 7.2/10
My Rating: 9/10
Sincerity Factor: 10/10
Treacle Factor: 4/10

Two nuns from a French convent travel to New England to found a children's hospital, but their lack of money, connections, and local resources propels them into encounters with church officials, landowners, and mobsters.

Part of the Kentucky Fried Popcorn Christmas Review Series.

Here's a tragedy - A movie that's been virtually forgotten, yet which should really be a bone-fide holiday classic on par with the Wonderful Life titles that everyone knows by heart.   Come to the Stable hasn't seen a commercial release since a VHS tape in the 80's, and it now seems lost in the public domain wasteland - That's why I posted the YouTube link above, where the movie can be seen in its entirety.  It's also floating around the usual torrent networks, if one prefers that route.  It can be found in DVD form at a few small online companies, but those are just transfers from the VHS version repackaged on DVD.  Hopefully someone will get smart and release a proper restored DVD edition of this!   But this film is the epitome of what I try to do with Kentucky Fried Popcorn, which is to bring unknown to light.

The story is very simple - Our heroines are Sister Margaret and Sister Scholastica, two nuns come to the US after World War 2 to fulfill a promise made during the war.  They ran a children's hospital in France, and prayed as the armies converged on their town that the generals would let them evacuate their charges.  They did, the kids all escaped, and now the good sisters are determined to do right for their faith by founding a new children's hospital in the states. 

Unfortunately, they face a few not-insignificant problems - They have no money, no support from the local arch diocese, no land to build on, and are complete strangers to US life and customs.  Unless you have a heart of stone, however, you can't help but grin and cheer for them as they barrel from one encounter to the next, borrowing what they need, following their instincts and charming a den of gangsters.  The land they want is owned by a city mob boss who they must "convince" to donate it, and they're also unknowingly up against the neighboring landowner Robert Masen (left), a music composer who has no desire to have a noisy hospital bordering his idyllic country home retreat.

A lot of the fun of this is in the humor - It's a much funnier story than you'd expect and the cheery nuns put an upbeat spin on everyone they meet.  The humor hasn't dated in the least, too...  It's largely in the form of witty banter and the occasional bit of slapstick, and the whole film feels as fresh as if it had been filmed yesterday. 

But expect to get a little misty, too.  Even the hardest of Grinchy hearts are likely to tear up at couple of places, especially the ending.  It isn't a movie that hits you over the head with its morality, but it's perfectly balanced enough to make one reflect on our own ideas of what we think we deserve versus the needs of others.  Robert Masen isn't a bad guy at all - He is nothing like the Scroogey anti-Christmas misers of so many other films, he's just a fellow who wants a little peace in a quiet little home he worked hard for.  It makes the conflict of the film much more ambiguous and indeed, more relatable.

One factor I've had to deal with head-on during this holiday movie marathon was the issue of religion in Christmas films - Where it belongs, where it doesn't, and the many ways in which it can be presented well and presented terribly.  I am not a churchgoer, myself, and am prone to take issue with movies that wag their fingers at me or try to hit me over the head with their spiritual message.  For me, the reason Come to the Stable works is because it has equal meaning for believers and non-believers alike - The religious can look at it and see the hand of god moving events and touching hearts, and the non-religious can view it as a parable of human goodness, of ordinary people doing remarkable things and showing generosity beyond expectations.  Like the best films, it's open to interpretation and even though the church is the center of the story, there aren't any fluttering angels or divine interventions.  Ultimately, it boils down to the central question we all face - Do we jealously guard our own comfort, or sacrifice for those in need?

And on that note, this wraps up the Kentucky Fried Popcorn holiday movie blowout for this year!  I hope everyone has enjoyed this wacko change of pace from my usual cinematic selections - I certainly have, and I look forward to doing this again next year... Especially because of all the films I didn't have time to write up this time out, such as Rare Exports, One Magic Christmas, and that oddly spooky modern movie, The Polar Express.  Until then, Happy Holidays to all, and to all a marvelous New Year!

Blithe Spirit (1945)

NetFlix 3.5/5
IMDB 7.1/10
My Rating: 6/10

During a lark of a seance, a twice-married Englishman accidentally has the spirit of his first wife summoned to live in the house with his second wife and himself.  Bowl of milk, perhaps?


If there is any theme at all to this blog, this is it - The search for cinematic oddities that are overlooked or forgotten.  Despite being a fan of older films, I'd never seen or heard of this until I stumbled across it in the Netflix streaming library, and it sounded like a perfect way to smoothly transition into the Autumn spooky movie season.  This isn't a horror film, though... Well, perhaps a bit, but it's more of a comedy-ghost story with some scary relationship undertones for both genders.  (Note - This film ranks high on the, "Likely to get you into an argument with your wife" scale due to the less-than-noble behavior of all the characters involved in this unearthly threesome)  So, what have we got here?

The film opens on the marriage of an upper-middle class English novelist.  Charles and his wife have invited local medium Mrs. Arcati (Irrepressibly fun and the best character in the film) to do a dinner seance for friends, essentially as a prank, as the husband's real interest is to observe a "faker" at work for his current novel.  As these things go, however, everyone gets more than they bargained for when the seance turns real and latches onto the ghost of his first wife, who ends up summoned into our world to haunt him and his current marriage.  The rest of the film unspools from there, as new wife Ruth matches wits with dead wife Elvira to see who will be the ongoing Mrs, while at the same time starting to wonder if either of them really want the unscrupulous Mr. Charles, or he them.

I have to give special marks to ex-wife Elvira, a bubbly lover of life who's simultaneously witty, wanton, cunning, catty, sexy, and completely untrustworthy.  Her performance is enjoyable every time she's on the screen, from her constant sniping at shrewish current wife Ruth to her merciless teasing of medium Arcati.  Also, not to overstate it in this age of bloody masked killers, but she looks marvelously creepy in her billowing gown and pale green everything.  It's a simple look that works well, from the age before computer FX, and the actors do a grand job of acting as if the floaty green lady isn't really in the room with them.

No one, except possibly Mrs. Arcati, comes off heroically in this.  Present wife Ruth is severe, unsympathetic, won't listen to her husband's obvious distress, and when she's eventually forced to accept the reality of the ghostly presence, she morphs into an embittered tigress defending a marriage she doesn't seem to love much anyway.  I've mentioned the foibles of ghost-wife Elvira already.  Charles himself is the iconic lazy upper crust type who views everything and everyone as accessories to himself.  I mentioned spousal arguments above - When Elvira first appears, I immediately liked her and my wife immediately hated her.  As the film progresses, the wife hate bent toward Charles and I began to dislike both of the women, even though Elvira is the sort that nearly every man will have a certain soft spot for, even if he wouldn't want to have to live with her.  The relationship becomes more and more strained until all parties concerned turn towards the "fake" medium again in desperation to put the errant spirit back where she belongs.

As a comedy, it's cute but never laugh-out-loud.  It's an understated drawing room humor with some fairly spicy and black jokes for its day, not the sort of comic hijinks of something like "The Ghost and Mister Chicken".  Unfortunately, the Netflix streaming video has some annoying drawbacks that detract from overall enjoyment.  It's a restored print of damaged stock.  There are a few points in the film where the frame rate goes very stuttery and uneven, and picture quality takes a dive.  Also, and no fault of the restoration, but the British RP accents and dialog are delivered so quickly and so crisply that I was often catching only half of what was said - And this is after 7 years of watching only British TV.  It's one of those rare English films where you'll wish there were subtitles.

Despite these problems, it's a fine and frothy way to ring in the Halloween season, especially for those looking for something a little more biting than the typical family-friendly ghost comedy.

The Vampire's Ghost

NetFlix 2.6/5
IMDB 6/10
My Rating: 6/10

Casablanca meets Dracula by way of Mayberry RFD.  A tiny African port town becomes increasingly unsettled due to vampire attacks.  Could the world-weary owner of the local bar be responsible?  

Like The Catman of Paris, this was another Republic Pictures horror flick of the 1940's that attempted to grab some of the box office of the Universal creature features.  Republic at the time seemed to be like Amicus to Hammer, that smaller studio that had less to work with, yet kept nipping at the heels of the more popular kid on campus.  Vampire's Ghost, like Catman of Paris, is largely forgotten today and didn't achieve the notoriety of any of Universal's vampire movies, yet it's surprisingly entertaining and even trendsetting...  But we'll get to that in a moment.

This is a very tidy little picture, running a brief 55 minutes yet packing in a lot of story.  The main characters are our hero, Lump Brickwood, his wife-to-be, Damsel O'Helpless, the obviously evil bartender/vampire Fallon, and Fearsome Priest.  Toss in a bunch of stereotype black natives played by US southern-accented black actors and you've got a movie.  Our tiny African port town is slowly coming unhinged.  Native drums pound ceaselessly, conveying all sorts of messages of doom that some of the cast occasionally translate for us (Some of these messages are strikingly specific, like, "Vampire sighted entering forbidden temple via left entrance, latitude and longitude coordinates to follow").  It seems there are scattered attacks around the area which involve neck wounds, victims drained of blood, and superstitious natives going batshit.  Our heroes laugh most of this off, except for Fearsome Priest, because main man Lump is in town to marry his sweetie and after all, so far the only victims are natives and who cares about them?

Alas, things go tits up when a white person is finally attacked and panic sets in.  Obviously, no one suspects any of the main cast because, again, they're all white and therefore above suspicion, despite the fact that town bar owner Fallon has superhuman strength, can't be injured with guns, and doesn't reflect in mirrors.  And speaking of our vampire, let's smack head-on into the movie's biggest problem...

Fallon is a great character.  He's cool, suave, methodical, extremely evil yet oddly sympathetic, and he looks like Barney Fife.  The actor John Abbott does all he can to make his vampire believable but his goofy eyes and Bloom County-like head shape and very Don Knotts-ian appearance knock a hole in the fear factor.  Every time he goes all Sinister Fangpants you're torn between tension and snortles.  And still...  It works.  For me, at least.  Your mileage may vary, but I found his whole unlikeliness as a master vampire to be enjoyable.  He doesn't play it for comedy, certainly - When he tells someone he's going to kill them and make their bride his immortal love slave, he does it with cold malice.  It's like Barney Fife suddenly yanking Otis into an alley and calmly pulling out a 9mm and putting 3 slugs in his drunken forehead.

Also, he's a massive foreshadow of vampires to come.  In 1945, cinematic vampires came in one form - Fucking scary.  Whether they were suave bloodsuckers like Dracula or crazy mutants like Max Schreck, they were not sympathetic.  Yet Fallon is.  In fact, he's a virtual walking progenitor of the white suit-clad, laconic and languid vampires of Anne Rice.  He's matter of fact about his condition, and conveys a great deal of sadness - He's over 400 years old, lonely, doomed to wander the earth eating the locals and sowing tragedy, and you're very tempted to feel sorry for him.  There are no capes or fangs in sight - Instead, this is just a bored and sad vampire who's tried to settle in an obscure port town and can't escape his nature, which is to make McSnacks of all that is juicy.  And he racks up a heck of a body count, too - There are random villagers, a fistfight with a ship captain who later becomes vampalicious, a dancer hottie, and (sort of) our hero Lump.

This is another movie that you'd never get a modern tween to sit through.  Even at just 55 minutes, it's mostly walking around and talking, interspersed with the occasional bar fight and spear through the chest.  It follows the basic monster movie model - Evil Thing sets sights on Damsel, sidelines Lump, and all action careens toward the climax of protecting Damsel's virtue from the bad guy.  In this case, Fallon brain-smacks Lump with his Glare of Hollowed-Eyed Vampiric-ness +5 and leaves Lump in a fever for half the movie while vampire smooches on his lady love and Fearsome Priest slowly realizes that he's going to have to do some Fearsome Soul-Saving and Priestly Ass-Kicking.  This leads us to a cracking climax and one of the film's best visuals, as the shadow of Fearsome's cross falls across the temptingly-bared neck of Damsel just before Fallon can chow down:

And keep telling yourself, "No, he doesn't look like Barney Fife."  All in all, this is a good flick.  While it doesn't have the memorable monster makeup of Catman of Paris, I thought it was actually a better movie - Certainly more cohesive in story.  It was never gonna be a contenda', but it's a serviceably good vampire story from the golden era of monster flicks and it sets itself apart from the pack by its unusually modern and unassuming villain.  Fallon is not the count in the castle or the thing in the crypt; he's the guy down the street.  The really goofy looking guy down the street.

Worth seeing!

The Catman of Paris (1946)

NetFlix (3/5)
IMDB (5.4/10)
My Rating: 5/10

A troubled author suffers memory lapses and suspects he may be transforming into a killer were-cat and stalking the streets of Paris.  As the bodies pile up, who can he trust?

Sometime back in the misty depths of the middle 1970's, there's a young Me collecting Famous Monsters of Filmland magazines and poring over all the black & white photos from exotic monster movies that are well nigh unattainable, unless he's really, really lucky with the Late Show.  One of those photos grabs his attention - A ferocious looking wolfman-like creature, incongruously wearing a top hat and cape, menaces a woman in a fancy gown who tries to hold it at bay with a pistol.  He thinks this flick looks as cool as another fave, Werewolf of London, because seeing monsters dressed up in 19th century garb is somehow so bizarre that it's fascinating.  Why would a wolfman wear a scarf?  Why does this catman put on a top hat?  Is there some upper crust echelon of movie monsters that won't leave home without a proper dinner jacket?  In any case, young Me remembers the photo and always keeps an eye out for Catman of Paris in every new TV Guide's movie listings, but no such luck...  It may as well not exist.  Today, however, thanks to the wonders of Netflix and their crazily-populated streaming libraries, young Me finally got his wish.

So what the heck is this, anyway?  Well, the best definition is that it's a Val Lewton wannabe, a sort of weird fusion of 40's film noir and classic horror that really wants to be a Wolfman but just doesn't quite make it due to uneven pacing, a hard-to-buy storyline, and the ultimate sin of Not Enough Monster.  This movie needs MORE MONSTER.  It flails around in the middle ground between beastie features like Dracula and "Is it real?" mystery-thrillers like Cat People, never really sure if it wants to come right out and be a crazy lycanthrope movie or go full Scooby Doo and yank the curtains back to reveal that it's just Old Man Farmer in a mask.  Surreal touches don't help - After the first murder, the Paris chief inspector has built, in his office and overnight, a miniature diorama of the murder scene, complete with tiny plastic trees and modelled cobblestone streets... but WHY?  And how?  (I lived in France.  You can't get a letter mailed to your next door neighbor overnight.)  This mini-Paris is shown for a scene or two and then totally forgotten, leaving you to wonder about this copper who spends his office time playing with tiny toy murder victims.

Reviewers on IMDB complain about the pacing - I didn't have a problem with it.  In fact, I thought it moved pretty briskly if you're accustomed to appreciating the nature of film noir, where dialog and character interaction take the place of the car chases and backflipping karate battles of modern films.  It's only 65 minutes long, and in that tight frame we have several murders, a crazy cat man, a government conspiracy, a publishing empire on the verge of ruin, a bitchy fiance determined to force her man into marriage, an expert in ancient cat people legends, a three way love triangle, a fight scene right out of Wild Wild West, and even a horse-drawn carriage chase scene - Who could get bored?  Also, and I give them great props here, when he does appear, the Catman is a fearsome thing.  He maxes out the creep factor very nicely using just minimal makeup, again much like my favorite wolfie, Werewolf of London.

Our hero Charles Regnier moves the story along as he pursues such quintessentially French activities as going out to dinner repeatedly, going out for coffee, and juggling a fiance and a mistress.  Is he a were-cat?  Seems in his past, he traveled the world and was exposed to bizarre tropical fevers which left him comatose for a long time.  Periodically, he's afflicted by a condition we'll call Obvious Plot Device, where he has a headache that forces him to leave his companions and venture out alone into the streets, where he promptly blacks out and awakens a day later, after another gruesome kitty murder.

The cat theme doesn't help the story.  Cats are not wolves.  This seems obvious, but Cat People got around this by intimating that Irena might be transforming into a decidedly panther-sized animal.  Here, our hero sees visions of arctic wastes (?) and black housecats, and when the Catman attacks we're treated to a lot of howling catfight noises that will freak out your own felines, but mostly make grown humans chuckle.  He looks scarier than he sounds.  Fortunately, he's aided by some great shadow play that amps up his first big kill and announces very loudly that the director has seen Nosferatu.

We're presented with a very visual Catman, yet the story remains stuck firmly in film noir territory - Is our hero the Catman?  Is it all just a fake?  What does it have to do with this government cover-up happening in the background?  While the amazingly credulous police jump right onto the were-cat angle (The senior fellow doesn't bat an eye as he pops out with, "It's obvious that what we have here is a human who is transforming into a catlike beast!" - Is this a common thing in Paris?), our main characters are more skeptical and the movie becomes a whodunnit as Charles stays one step ahead of the police.  Sadly, this involves a very long, Catman-free middle act that will try the patience of horror movie buffs.  If you want noir, you get noir, but viewers wanting more wolf-out antics will start dropping out around the 30 minute mark.  Van Helsing fans, however, will enjoy the late entry Basil Exposition character, who just happens to be a walking storehouse of Catman lore and myth all crammed into one crazy-haired package... Unfortunately again, he's a character that gets too little screen time.

It redeems itself at the end, however, with a cracking climax that sets up an ideal peril situation before you even know it's happening, and when we reach our Scooby Doo moment it turns out to be many things at once - A villain unmasking, a WTF, an, "Aha!  So, Watson, you see...", and a Darth Vader death scene all rolled into one bizarro mixture that really doesn't make a lot of sense at all.  And then BAM, we're End Credits so fast you can practically hear the director barking about the price of an extra five minutes of film stock.

Bottom line - It's an obscure oddity, not great, not bad, but certainly worth viewing for any fans of noir, classic Universal horror, or Val Lewton.  Don't expect it to be on the level of any of the above, and you'll probably get some enjoyment from it.  Like Werewolf of London, it has that lesser-sibling appeal - Everyone knows its more famous, bigger budgeted brother, but if you're willing to show it some attention, it isn't without charms of its own.  Extra credit goes to the wildly varying French accents of the actors, some of whom do a great job portraying the locals while others speak in Clouseau voice or just don't give a damn - The "French" chief inspector looks American, talks American, and gives his French character all the localized characteristics of Sean Connery's, "Och, less nae hie back tae thae Kremlin noo, laddies" Russian sub commander in Hunt for Red October.

Suggested Accompaniment:  You have at least one French pipe, yes?  A Butz Choquin, an Enrique, or even one of our own Ligne Bretagnes?  Dig it out and find a good coffee-flavored blend, something with some added flavoring that brings to mind the smell of the Cafe du Bois (I'd suggest a French tobacco, except that there are no good French pipe tobaccos, so you'll have to approximate as best you're able).  Mix in something offbeat to drink - A wheat beer, maybe, or one of those microbrew limited runs that they claim they're only making 9 bottles of, each one stored in oak casks that were salvaged from a 17th century derelict three master.  It's a rare movie that not many people have seen and probably even fewer care much about, so pick some unusual libations to go along with it, and enjoy!