Three on a Match: A Pre-Code Classic (or: Why I'm nuts about Ann Dvorak)

The Film: Three on a Match (First National Pictures, 1932). Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Screenplay by Lucien Hubbard, based on a story by John Bright and Kubec Glasmon. Starring Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, Bette Davis, Lyle Talbot, Warren William, Humphrey Bogart. Running time: A mere 63 minutes!!!

(Above: Three pals, left to right: Bette Davis, Joan Blondell and Ann Dvorak, lighting cigarettes from the same match. Not a good idea.)

When I first saw it: On Turner Classic Movies a few years ago. Thank God for Turner Classic Movies!

A few words about the film: Directed by the versatile Mervyn LeRoy (Gold Diggers of 1933, I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, the list goes on and on), Three on a Match is a potent pre-Hays Code motion picture that still packs one hell of a punch. The film was released in the fall of '32, during the depths of the Great Depression, when soup lines looped around entire city blocks and the nation teetered precariously on the precipice. In the film, three women (Joan Blondell, Bette Davis and Ann Dvorak) who've been pals since childhood get together and each light a cigarette from the same match. According to superstition, one of the three women who lights a cigarette from a match that lights the other two will die. Your job: Guess which one of the three gals will perish by the end credits? Will it be level-headed Mary (Blondell), who always does the right thing? Nondescript stenographer Ruth (Bette Davis), who isn't in much of the film at all but has pretty eyelashes? Or unhappily married Vivian (Dvorak), who is bored with her well-to-do hubby (Warren William) and sick of being a mother to her adorable little son? (Can you see where this is going?) Yes, it's a morality play. Yes, it lays it on thick. But this is a gripping melodrama in the finest tradition of Warner Brothers' Depression-era movies. Vivian goes on an ocean cruise with her son, but without hubby. She neglects the brat and shacks up with gambler Michael Loftus (Lyle Talbot). Vivian ultimately decides to leave hubby, becomes a cocaine addict and gets mixed up in Michael's entanglement with a group of gangsters (one of whom is played to the sinister hilt by Humphrey Bogart in an early role). Heroine Mary (Blondell) tries to intervene to save her downward-spiraling friend Vivian. Will she succeed before the coming of the end credits? That's for me to know and you to find out, bub.

(Left: Ann Dvorak, protecting her son from a group of ominous goons led by the great Humphrey Bogart.)

My reasons for digging it: Three words: Ann Dvorak, Ann Dvorak and Ann Dvorak. Actually, that's seven words, but who the hell is counting? I'm not kidding you, my friend - this woman was truly one of the finest actresses to ever come out of Hollywood. This is the time and place to recommend the wonderful website called Ann Dvorak: Hollywood's Forgotten Rebel. Dvorak had just recently starred in the gangster masterpiece Scarface, another one of my favorite movies, when she appeared in Three on a Match. In Three on a Match, she conveys a wide range of emotions in a way that is always utterly believable. She's the classic "fallen woman," and there isn't a false note in her performance. Throw in brilliant Humphrey Bogart as the menacing gangster called "Harve" who, through a simple facial and hand gesture, indicates that Dvorak's character is hooked on cocaine, and you've got the makings of a fabulous film. I've watched a lot of films from the early 1930s (it was a fascinating period of experimental filmmaking, in the limbo region between silent and sound) and not many of them from this era withstand the test of time the way Three on a Match does. Most movies from the period tend to be full of pops and hisses, stilted dialogue and overacting. Not Three on a Match. It keeps you watching until "The End" flashes on the screen. Even though Dvorak's character Vivian is selfish, she's also sympathetic. The viewer is left on the edge of her/his chair, waiting to see whether she survives the superstitious curse placed on her early in the film when she shares a match with Davis and Blondell.

In the final analysis: Part paleo-noir, part gangster film, part romance, part drama, this film has it all. There's humor. There's pathos. There's the nerve-racking last ten minutes of the film that made me bite my fingernails to the quick. Hard to believe Mervyn LeRoy packed all of this in to 63 minutes. Being a pre-Motion Picture Production Code movie, the film gets away with all kinds of edgy and risky moments that you won't find in movies made even a year after it. And Ann Dvorak - brilliant Ann Dvorak - how lucky we are to savor her amazing screen presence. Grade: A-.

Sleazy Exploitation at its Finest

The Film: The Hypnotic Eye (Allied Artists, 1960). Directed by George Blair. Screenplay by Gitta and William Woodfield. Starring Jacques Bergerac, Allison Hayes, Marcia Henderson, Joe Patridge, Guy Prescott. Running time: 79 minutes of pure joy.

When I first saw it: I can't exactly remember, but I'm quite certain Ronald Reagan was president at the time.

A few words about the film: The Hypnotic Eye is one of those films that you have to see to believe. It's genuinely entertaining. It was filmed in Los Angeles and has that great 1960 look about it (probably because it was made in 1960). The film features a shrink who smokes pipes (Guy Prescott), a macho police detective (Joe Patridge), the police detective's girlfriend (Marcia Henderson), a stage hypnotist called Desmond with a thick French accent that puts Pepe Le Pew to shame (Jacques Bergerac) and his hot assistant (Allison Hayes of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman fame). The premise: Several women who have seen Desmond's stage show end up disfiguring themselves in horrific ways. Turns out all these women not only saw the stage show, they were called up on stage by Desmond to be hypnotized. While they were under his spell, the prick leaned over and whispered in their ears, telling them to mutilate themselves in unthinkable ways. We follow the police detective and the shrink as they close in on Desmond. In order to trap Desmond in the act, the cop allows his dish of a sweetheart to be hypnotized by the maniacal Frenchman.

Why I dug it: This is a great gimmick film, in the tradition of William Castle's gimmick movies. The ads boasted: "NEW AUDIENCE-PARTICIPATION THRILL HYPNOMAGIC - It makes YOU part of the show..." As noted above, the film isn't very long (a minute short of 80 minutes), and there is never a dull moment. I stayed up late for this sucker back when I was a teenager in suburban Holladay, Utah, and I can honestly say it was worth waiting up for. I recorded the film on VHS and watched it over and over again. Before reviving this blog, I gave the film one more viewing and it still holds up beautifully after all these years. I've noticed it's available on DVD. Looks like I'm going to visit eBay after I finish this entry so I can once again relive the pleasures of Hypnomagic!

Parting Shot: The very least that can be said about The Hypnotic Eye is that it's the best non-William Castle gimmick film ever made. The exteriors shot in Los Angeles give the film a wonderful noirish look, ripped straight out of the pages of James Ellroy (the demon dog would dig this film... I just know it). The self-mutilations are actually still quite shocking. Even today - a half century after the film was made - they can make the viewer squeamish. And as if all this isn't quite enough, there is a twist ending. Grade: B.

Back in Business!!!

Greetings Fellow Film Buffs,

After a long hiatus, I have decided to resume blogging here at Diary of a Cinephile. I miss it and I love blogging about film. I also hate to think that the last film I'd leave off with on my Blog is Observe and Report, truly one of the worst films of 2009. For a long time, I blogged about contemporary American politics and society on my blog called Andrew's Tiki Lounge. I'll be honest with you: American politics has really been depressing me (quite badly), so I abandoned the Tiki Lounge. But just because despair has gotten the best of me with regards to American politics, that doesn't mean I have to abandon this Blog. I will continue to treat it as a tour of the weird, the wonderful, the sublime, the terrible and the fun films I have watched throughout my life. This blog will focus primarily on the films that have influenced me in one way or another, but I also reserve the right to include movies that are currently playing in the theaters. I have a lot to say about film and I'm happy to resume with this Blog.

I hope you enjoy it and much as I enjoy writing it.

Happy Moviegoing!

Andrew Hunt

Present Tense: Observe and Report (2009)

The Film: Observe and Report (De Line Pictures, 2009). Directed by Jody Hill. Screenplay by Jody Hill. Starring Seth Rogen, Ray Liotta, Michael Peña, Anna Faris, Collette Wolfe, The Yuan Brothers (John & Matt), Celia Weston. Running time: Somewhere around an hour and a half, but it felt like it was eighteen days long. 

The Quick and Dirty: The second mall cop movie of 2009 (the first being Paul Blart: Mall Cop), this movie is about a bipolar -- which, in this case, means borderline psychotic (sometimes not borderline at all) -- mall security officer played by Seth Rogen. There are a few laugh-out-loud moments in the film, but the movie is amazingly dark for a comedy. It's a great premise for a movie: The mall cop and the men under his command are in hot pursuit of a flasher who is showing off his goods in the mall parking lot. But the movie deviates a lot from the main storyline, showing a go-nowhere romance between Rogen and Anna Faris that is so unfunny it's painful. Genuinely talented actors such as Ray Liotta, Celia Weston and Michael Peña are, sadly, wasted in the film. The hilarious Yuan Brothers -- pudgy twins who play Rogen's subordinates -- steal all of the scenes they're in, and Collette Wolfe helps savage the parts of the film she's in as a genuinely sweet employee at a cinnamon bun joint. 

Why I Didn't Dig It: Hollywood has made one too many slapdash comedies (e.g., You Don't Mess with the Zohan, just about every movie with Anna Faris in it). Add Observe and Report to that list. The movie has a screenplay that sounds like it was written in less time than the actual running time of the movie. Observe and Report is much too grim for a comedy. Some people found the sex scene between Rogen and a drugged-up, passed-out Faris to be too crass (certain reviewers have referred to it as a "date rape" scene, although I wouldn't go that far). The Rogen/Faris sex scene did not bother me as much as the gratuitous violence throughout the film (Rogen and his fellow security guards bashing the hell out of skateboarders; Rogen blasting the unarmed flasher with a handgun). In the end, the movie just doesn't hold together and the funny moments are few and far between. And it proves that just because Seth Rogen is in it, that doesn't guarantee it's going to be funny.

Parting Shot: Maybe it's unfair to hold every Seth Rogen comedy to the standard set by the sidesplittingly hilarious Pineapple Express (2008). Rogen's successful collaborations with Judd Apatow -- The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up -- also set the bar very high. Give the guy a break. He's bound to make a dud once in a while. Grade: D+. 

Five Ghost Films You Really Should Watch...

I just saw A Haunting in Connecticut and was pleasantly surprised by what a good film it was. I went into it with rock-bottom expectations. It received only a 5.8 out of 1o on the Internet Movie Database. I'd give it about a 6.5 -- maybe a 7 if I'm in a very generous mood. The screenplay was well written, the main characters were fully realized, and the spooky moments were genuinely chilling. It was far superior to the dreary 2005 ghost film American Haunting (about the allegedly true Bell Witch haunting), but that isn't saying much.

There are some superb ghost films out there. This is my list of Top Five Ghost Films. If you get a chance, have a look at some of them, especially Number One.

1. The Haunting (1963): There has not -- repeat, HAS NOT -- ever been another haunting/ghost film that can match this 1963 Robert Wise masterpiece. This, simply put, is one of the finest films ever made. Period. Julie Harris is brilliant as the neurotic and insecure Eleanor, a character both sympathetic and maddeningly annoying at the same time. British actor Richard Johnson is thoroughly believable as the erudite Dr. Markway, the movie's resident "expert" who is on hand to explain the strange goings-on in the film. Claire Bloom is the beautiful medium Theo and throw in Russ Tamblyn as the beatnik Luke, one of film's greatest cynics, who's going to inherit the spook-filled castle. Here's something interesting: You never actually see a ghost in the entire film (!). You only hear sounds -- footsteps, groans, shaking door knobs -- yet the film is more horrifying, intense and authentic than any other ghost film ever made. Hollywood will never again be able to make a ghost film this outstanding. Best not to even try. A word to the wise: Avoid the 1999 remake at all costs!

2. Kwaidan (1964): Possibly my favorite Japanese film is also a ghost film to boot (no surprise there). Director Masaki Kobayashi's 1964 tour de force is actually four ghost stories for the price of one. The colors are subdued in the film, which gives you the impression at times that you are watching a black and white film. At other times, the colors are saturated, depending on the mood of the film. There is no gore in the film. No shock scenes. No ghouls leaping out of the darkness. Like The Haunting, Kwaidan relies on top-notch acting, writing, directing, cinematography and music to convey a sense of dread and horror. The film probably is not too easy to locate on DVD, although the mail-order services (Zip.ca in Canada, Netflix in the United States) probably have it. Rent it. Have a look. It will hypnotize you.

3. The Legend of Hell House (1973): John Hough's 1973 The Legend of Hell House -- based on the novel by horror writer Richard Matheson (Matheson also wrote the screenplay) is not in the same league as The Haunting by any means, but it is still a very good horror film. it is also a sentimental favorite: It is one of the first horror films I remember watching as a little kid (no wonder I'm so disturbed -- I grew up on a steady diet of horror films!). Mousy Roddy McDowall -- one of cinema's most underrated actors -- steals the show as turtleneck-wearing medium Dr. Ben Fischer, the lone survivor of another paranormal experience gone bad. He leads a team into the Belasco House -- The Mount Everest of Haunted Houses, as it's called -- a huge castle built by a psychotic millionaire. There isn't much build-up in this film. Crazy shit abounds almost right away. The film has that gritty early 1970s feel to it, the same feeling so many films had when they were finally liberated from the Production Code. It's full of loud moments and shocking special effects. The other performers, Pamela Franklin, Clive Revill and Gayle Hunnicutt, are also very good in the film. But make no mistake: The film belongs to Roddy. He's the reason to see it. He's a great tormented character, going up against dark and powerful forces. 

4. The Others (2001): Alejandro Amenabar's eerie, atmospheric 2001 ghost film, along with 1999's The Sixth Sense (below) revived the genre. In my view, it's a better film than The Sixth Sense. It's darker. It's more forlorn. It's creepier. Like The Sixth Sense, it contains a twist ending (don't worry -- I loathe spoilers). Nicole Kidman is at her very best as Grace Stewart, the mother who cannot tell whether she is losing her sanity. The entire cast delivers fabulous performances. Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan actually somehow manages to steal the show, though, as Bertha Mills. If you want to see a truly great performer at work, watch the film just for Flanagan's performance. This is a movie you'll want to view over and over again.

5. The Sixth Sense (1999): Like Orson Welles, M. Night Shyamalan started out strong and went downhill from there. Sadly, unlike Orson Welles, Shyamalan doesn't seem to have a Magnificent Ambersons or Touch of Evil or Chimes at Midnight up his sleeve. In fairness to Shyamalan, The Sixth Sense is hard to top. Who would've thought Bruce Willis was a heavyweight? He is -- in this film, at least. As Dr. Malcolm Crowe, he becomes a father figure to Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment, a magnificent 11-year-old actor in a tortured role).  The film is a minor masterpiece and shines in every category. And it also catapulted Toni Collette to fame. What more can you ask for from a film?

You will notice A Haunting in Connecticut did not make the list. Neither did some other very good ghost films: The Night Comes Too Soon, a.k.a. The Ghost of Rashmon Hall, an obscure British gem from 1947; the overlooked 1995 ghost drama The Haunted starring Aidan Quinn and Kate Beckinsale; the amazing British horror film Dead of Night from 1945; and, of course, one of my personal favorite ghost comedies, Ghost Busters from 1984. 

All of them are worth watching.

More Vintage Lugosi: One of my favorite scenes from Devil Bat (1940)

The Film: Devil Bat, a.k.a. Killer Bat, Devil Bats, etc. (Producers Releasing Corporation, 1940). Directed by Jean Yarbrough. Screenplay by John T. Neville. Starring Bela Lugosi, Suzanne Kaaren, Dave O'Brien, Guy Usher, Donald Kerr. Running time: 68 minutes.

The Brief Lowdown: Hardcore Bela Lugosi fans, such as yours truly, savor this classic B-movie from the Golden Age of Bela's film career. Lugosi plays Dr. Paul Carruthers, who genetically engineers a gigantic mutant bat in his kick-ass secret laboratory (what the hell are those buzzing electrode thingies, anyhow, and what exactly do they do?). The bat goes after anybody wearing a special after-shave lotion invented by -- you guessed it -- the same Dr. Paul Carruthers responsible for the genetically-engineered giant mutant bat.  This film is one of my favorite poverty-row quickies (it's not quite as much of a masterpiece as Edgar G. Ulmer's 1945 film noir Detour, which I'll also review here at some point -- but it's up there). Remember Dave O'Brien, from Reefer Madness? ("MAE! BRING ME SOME REEFERS!") He's in this sucker, as a newspaper journalist. O'Brien was one of Hollywood's great underrated B-actors. But Lugosi steals the show as the mad scientist living in an idyllic small town who gets unceremoniously screwed over by a local cosmetics firm. The people who tried to stick it to Lugosi get their comeuppance, thanks to his giant killer bat. Unfortunately, when O'Brien and his dopey photographer pal (Donald Kerr) come snooping around the town, it's the beginning of the end for Lugosi. The film is easily accessible on DVD. Here is a scene from it (below). Enjoy!!!

Memorable Moments: The Black Cat (1934)

Here is a classic scene from Edgar G. Ulmer's The Black Cat (1934). I guarantee that after you watch this scene, you'll want to watch the entire film.