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The documentary "Hitler's Reign of Terror" debuted in April 1934 and is considered the first anti-Nazi film. "Are We Civilized?" debuted two months later. It's probably the first fictional anti-Nazi film, which gives it some historic interest. OK, the country where it takes place is never identified as Germany but it's pretty obvious. Unfortunately the writing is pretty stilted, the plot isn't really credible, and about half of it is a simplistic lesson in human history illustrated by clips from old silent films.

The plot concerns an ex-German soldier from World War One, with a metal plate in his head , who somehow by 1934 has moved to the US and become owner of the world's larges newspaper syndicate, with his adult son as second in command. The son is engaged to the daughter of the father's boyhood best friend, who now has become the head of Germany's propaganda and censorship bureau. At a state dinner is his honor, the refugee news magnate naively launches an attack on German state censorship and things go downhill from there.

Adding to the unintentional humor is that everyone in Germany speaks only English with a variety of attempts at German accents, when the actors remember, although some cops who invade the press syndicate's palatial offices to burn books sound straight from the Bronx.

Unlikely you'll want to sit through the whole movie if you can find it, but film history buffs should enjoy browsing through it. The film makers at least deserve some credit for their boldness in bringing it out at a time when many in the US were quite opposed to criticism of Hitler.

People on the left who don't like Reagan, people on the right who think the movie is degrading to Reagan. In either case I wonder if they bothered to watch it. Historic note: back in the 70s anti-Reagan people scheduled showings of this film in the belief that it made Reagan look foolish, until they realized that he was quite engaging and likable in the movie.

In case you're worried that a movie about raising a chimp like a human child in an experiment to prove that environment is more important than heredity might be a bit too heavy or gloomy, don't be. This is strictly comedy all the way with a little romance thrown in.

Reagan and colleagues are all fine but Bonzo steals the show. I'm not claiming he's an actor but he shows off the mental and physical abilities of chimps that we've since become more familiar with, while being cute and endearing.

I realize that the chimp playing Bonzo was just a child and adult chimps are a bit too hard to handle to keep as pets but this is the kind of movie that makes you wish that you could.

Oh, if only we could watch every film with no advance knowledge so we'd be surprised when we're supposed to be. Well, if you've gotten this far, you must know that womanizing cad Charlie's karma is to be reincarnated as an attractive young woman. If you watch it with someone else, do them a favor and don't tip them off.

There's a clever plot chronicling the changes in Charlie's behavior as his new persona settles in, with amusing situations and dialog. Debbie Reynolds' performance as the "new" Charlie, particularly the early scenes where "she" is mentally still 100% Charlie, is outstanding.

So why the several hate-filled reviews? This film was decades before the great "trans" controversy rampant today and was made just for laughs with a little social commentary. My theory is that those strongly on today's anti-trans side are taking it as trans propaganda and ignoring its content.

Bottom line, a funny but thought-provoking comedy with good performances all around, though Walter Matthau's idea of a Hungarian accent is a bit grating.

As a big fan of the 1949 film noir D. O. A. I was looking forward to seeing this remake moving the action from California to 1969 Australia but it was so poorly done that it somehow diminished my enjoyment of the original. The strangest part is that both films were the work of the same pair of screenwriters.

The plot gimmick is that a man who was surreptitiously given a poison that has no antidote has only a few days to live and try to find out who did it and why. In the original he discovers the plot in bits and pieces as he goes along. This time around the authors decided to give away a good deal of the plot at the beginning, which only detracts from the suspense.

The original was in artistically composed and lit black and white. The remake is in that 1960s Eastmancolor that never looked as sharp or as bright as the Technicolor it replaced. The biggest problem is the two main actors. The producers must have thought that casting Americans as Australians in the lead roles would help at the box office. The clash of their accents with those of the Australians in the supporting cast is annoying if you're annoyed by such things, but the bigger problem is that Tom Tryon and Carolyn Jones can't hold a candle to Edmond O'Brien and Pamela Britton from 1949's D. O. A. Tryon seems incapable of cutting loose and showing the emotion required for the role. Jones was more versatile, but the slender and sexy Morticia of The Addams Family a few years earlier is lethargic and noticeably older and chubbier, perhaps due to health issues. Neither starred in any movies after this.

I watched this to satisfy my curiosity but I wish I hadn't.

You no doubt know by now that this is an earlier version of the Dashiell Hammett novel than the classic 1941 film with Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet et al so no need to go into details.

I just want to say that this film would stand up well on its own, but pales in comparison with the later version. This is due partly to technical advances in the intervening years, but more to the superiority of the acting in the later versions. This is more a tribute to the 1941 cast than criticism of the 1931 cast and may owe something to the script and directions, but, with the exception of Thelma Todd's small role in the 1931 film, every lead actor and supporting player is both more vibrant and more nuanced in the later version.

I suspect anyone reading this already has a good idea of the plot and probably has seen the later version so I'll just repeat myself. If you watch the earlier version on its own it comes across as a solid pre-coder but if you watch it after the later film it's disappointing. And if you are going to watch both, allow a decent interval in between because some scenes are word for word identical which gets a bit old if you watch them too close together.

This film's obscurity and lack of big names in the cast led me to expect an ultra-low budget offering from an unheard-of studio. While not an extravaganza, it turned out to be a B-movie from a major studio.

Better yet, it's a fast-paced crime drama with elements of humor in a clever script. I have not seen many of the over 100 films in which Virginia Grey appeared but I'm reasonably confident this was the high point of her career. She plays a Broadway actress on the make with little or no regard for the truth or the people she uses on the way up, much like Eve in the more famous All About Eve. Anyone who's ever dealt with a compulsive liar (most of us, I believe) will enjoy "seeing" the wheels spinning in her head while coming up with one quick-witted excuse or cover story after another. Since the two main men in her life, a defense attorney and a Broadway producer, aren't totally trustworthy either, and yes, there is a real crime involved too, there's a lot going on in a 64 minute film. If it were remade today it would probably be twice as long without adding anything. And that's why I watch movies from this era.

Bonus point for those like myself who enjoy such films yet are dismayed by their casual racism, or simple exclusion of non-white performers: the lovely Theresa Harris, an African-American actress whose Hollywood career consisted mostly of playing maids, here plays .... Virginia Grey's maid. But they're also friends and confidantes, much like the role Harris played opposite Barbara Stanwyck in the pre-coder Baby Face.

I wonder if millennials have even heard of the double standard. It used to be a real thing and a well-know phrase. It underlies one of the threads of this film's plot. Simply put, it meant it was OK for a man to have sex before marriage but if a woman did she was "a fallen woman" "a tramp" and some worse names. This begs the question of with whom the males were supposed to romp, but that's in tomorrow's lesson.

The central character is Mary (Myrna Loy), a successful novelist, unmarried and in love with a married man. She has based the protagonist of her latest, almost-finished, novel on herself. In the end of the novel this character gets the man and all concerned, even the wife, approve because their love is something so wonderful. This makes for a clever plot device in the film, as Mary gets to discuss the work in progress with various people with various degrees of understanding how autobiographical it is. One of these conversations leads to the film's climax and is a genuinely unsettling scene.

The hero, Jimmie (Robert Montgomery), is a type common in 1930s films, The Idle Rich Playboy With a Heart of Gold. He lectures her sternly on the importance of the double standard, gallantly explaining "Gosh, I've persuaded so many women and hated them afterward." The noble virtuous sort. Naturally he has an ulterior motive, namely Mary, whom he wants for himself, but only if legitimized by the marriage ceremony, and of course undefiled.

Jimmie's efforts don't stop there. He manages to intrude or otherwise disturb Mary and her lover whenever they have a moment together. It took me a while to realize that he was doing so to prevent their affair from being "consummated" as they used to say, since in the year 2020 I at first assumed it had already been consummated.

So, like many early-30s films, it's not only well done but gives you some insight into what was going on in those days. And as in many such, the final twists and turns look predictable but turn out be not exactly what you expected.

Definitely not an "action" film and a bit of a talkfest at times. Sometimes the characters seem to be debating rather than conversing. Lightened a bit by Alice Brady as a ditsy middle-aged rich woman with a boy toy. Her character helps move the plot along in places by blabbing people's secrets, then pretending it was an accident. You know the type.

As you must know by now, lovely bride-to-be Claudette Colbert's wedding is interrupted, then canceled, when a stranger insists she was married before in another town, and phone calls to its bureau of records seem to confirm it.

We strongly suspect she did no such thing because she's the star after all, and she seems too busy as a concert pianist to have led this alleged double life. But all sorts of people in the other town claim to confirm it.

I don't think it's giving away too much to reveal that it was all indeed a conspiracy. Nothing wrong with that dramatically, but the main perpetrator's motive turns out be something of which we were given no inkling, and the plot against Claudette is so involved and complicated it would have required at least the CIA, not a fairly ordinary person, to pull off.

The film is well made and suspenseful and all that, but for me the final explanation was just too far-fetched and left me feeling a bit cheated.

This 1933 film's action begins in 1905. The first quarter or so, though the quality of acting and period costumes and sets is high, may strike today's viewer as the most cliched of Cinderella stories, more suitable for a Depression-era shopgirl seeking escape than a sophisticated 21st-century Internet user. Pretty proletarian chorus girl Peggy (Kay Francis) is romanced by not one but two fabulously wealthy playboys. As would any of us, she opts for the younger and handsomer of the two, who additionally wants to marry her over the objections of his stuffy mother, who of course eventually is won over by Peggy's natural charm and sweetness.

By this time, unless you're a fan of Harlequin romance novels, you may be sorely tempted to switch to another channel, DVD or website, as I probably would have had my spouse and I not been watching together, each reluctant to be the one to suggest pulling the plug.

However, there is one hitch in this opening chapter of bliss. Peggy's older, less handsome rich playboy was more than just a hopeful suitor. In fact she was his mistress in a richly furnished love nest. So there is hope that something a bit more dramatic will develop, and indeed it does and the film morphs into a typical hard-hitting fast-paced pre-code melodrama.

This is where my deep thought comes in. If a similar story was presented today as a movie, TV show, short story or novel, it would start with some later courtroom scene or act of violence to let you know what was in store, then flash back to the beginning without your having to wonder if anything interesting was going to happen.

Hey, I know, even in 1933 they knew about flashbacks. They also knew that 1930s moviegoers, with no TV or computer waiting at home, who had paid their nickel for four hours of escape from the Depression, were not going to walk out of the theater after fifteen minutes, so the film could start slow and work its way up.

So don't necessarily touch that dial, or remote, or keyboard and be prepared for, eventually, a pre-code action melodrama with, as so often, a morally ambiguous conclusion.

I love pre-code films, often even when they're less than great. They're usually so fast-paced, packing more plot and ideas into one hour than today's movies do in two and a half, that one is willing to overlook inconsistencies and implausibilities in the script, if such occur.

But when they reach an hour and a half, they sometimes bog down and become as dull as the inane films the Production Code later foisted on us.

This film is a good example. The history of Edward G. Robinson's transformation from a young idealist inheriting his father's meat-packing business to a ruthless capitalist defies credulity both for his naivete and the ease of his rise to the top when he discards his scruples. The characters are mostly one-dimensional stereotypes. The character of his opera star mistress, a somewhat miscast Kay Francis, who eggs him on with Nietzschean pep talks about dominating the world, sounds like Ayn Rand on steroids.

All this is fine for the first hour or so, when the rapid succession of events keeps you guessing what will happen next and too busy to think about the logic of it all. The last half hour or so, about his well-deserved downfall, goes by much more slowly and grinds to an undramatic ending.

Still worth a look for pre-code fans for Robinson, Francis and other fine actors, but don't put it at the top of your list.

A partner in a publishing firm seemingly commits embezzlement, then suicide. A year later three couples involved with the firm drift into an after-dinner conversation about the circumstances in which new facts continue to surface.

The film is based on a stage play, there's more talk than action, and some incriminating facts are admitted a little too readily, so you may find stretches of it a bit slow or unconvincing.

However there's quite a clever twist at the end with, in true pre-code fashion, a somewhat unexpected moral.

So if you're looking for slam-bang action, forget it, but considered as an old-fashioned mystery with a twist at the end, the film moves at a reasonable pace and delivers as promised.

BTW "Plot Keywords" on the IMDB main page includes "homosexual subtext." I have nothing against homosexual subtexts but any homosexual subtext in this film exists only in the imagination of someone who created a list with that title.

There's a good old time travel plot where the protagonist is given, by God, Saint Peter or other supernatural agency, the chance to go back in time and change his life, either to improve his circumstances or to avert a disaster. To make things interesting, there should be some kind of twist. His efforts to improve things only make them worse, or his efforts to prevent the disaster cause it to happen.

This early entry in the genre blows it from the beginning by making it clear that the return to the past is only an ether-induced dream, so we know that it really isn't going to change events. It still has its effect on the hero, in the sense of "be careful what you wish for" but it loses some of the impact of similar plots where we assume that he has no way of returning to the old status quo.

Still there's always fun to be had in the situation of the man who knows everything that's going to happen without anyone believing him. In this instance he does get to use his knowledge to gain a measure of fame and fortune and there are some comic bits, that not all of today's audience would understand, when he slips and starts talking about historical events yet to happen, like World War One, Prohibition and the stock market crash to uncomprehending friends and family. In fact, this is a bit overdone and you being to wonder why he seems to be too dumb to remember what year he's in.

Bottom line, a fun watch but inconsistent and missed opportunities for a catchier plot.

I'll be frank. I do not believe in ESP, clairvoyance, reincarnation, ghosts, or other supernatural phenomena beloved by some people. Thus films like this irritate me on one level because I can picture the believers claiming fortune telling is legitimate because they've seen it work in a movie, like UFO believers who think "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" validates their beliefs.

True, there are lots of movies based on ghosts, reincarnation or ESP but they're usually played for laughs or else identified as fantasy or science fiction. This one plays it straight and the fact that it's a riveting well-made drama makes it a more compelling argument for what I consider superstition.

However, once you accept the premise that Edward G. Robinson's character sometimes gets glimpses of the future, including stock market and race track tips, it's a well-done variant on the ancient theme of the prophet who can foresee the future yet is powerless to change it, or even causes his prediction of tragedy to come true through his attempt to prevent it.

But the film does more than harp on that one note. The plot has enough twists and turns to hold your interests, along with occasional bits of comedy and romance.

Late in life Robinson seemed to specialize in characters racked with psychological torment and guilt, and his performance here makes the film's premise more believable. Rest of the cast fine too.

So if you believe in psychic powers, this is right down your alley, and if you don't, still plenty of fun and suspense.

"Czar of Noir" Eddie Muller, on TCM's "Noir Alley," suggests that the implausible tacked-on happy ending of this film was added by nervous studio heads after negative reactions at sneak previews. He also points out certain borrowings from the earlier film "Shockproof," which happened to have an even less credible tacked-on happy ending.

He also points out more positive features, like the crisp direction of little-remembered Felix Feist and Steve Cochran's appeal in a rare (somewhat) sympathetic part that foreshadows Elvis Presley's screen persona before he switched to lightweight musicals. And with all due respect to The King, Cochran had more range as an actor.

One of many "couple on the run" movies of the time, this one stands out for its fast pace, creative use of location shooting, and clever plot twists. What's more impressive is the social issues it raises without preaching; juvenile incarceration, lack of a support system for released prisoners, irresponsible journalism and the ethics of ratting out a friend.

One quibble: a long segment among migrant farm workers in California's Central Valley shows nary a non-white face. Oh well, that's 1950 for you, but a missed opportunity.

Fast-paced, well-acted, thought-provoking, too bad about that ending

Whatever sordid ideas "Street of Women" might bring to mind, this film has nothing to do with any of them. This romantic triangle (or perhaps larger geometric figure) is more daring than it would have been after the Production Code cast its pall over Hollywood because its sympathies are squarely with the adulterous couple over the neglected wife.

In the depths of the Great Depression, audiences loved nothing more than seeing films about millionaires with no greater problems than their bed partners (or, after The Code, their platonic friendships).

The hero here is a financier building skyscrapers; the architect (no doubt to Ayn Rand's dismay) is an otherwise ineffectual sort who moons over a dress designer unaware she's the financier's mistress. The wife's crime is she wants to move about in high society rather than coming up with keen ideas to advance her husband's career as the mistress does. Since everyone has money to burn, nobody gets hurt.

As a soap opera about the sex lives of the very wealthy, what distinguishes this from similar epics? There are some interesting plot twists involving relationships between other family members that affect the two main characters. (I'm trying to avoid spoilers, though you've probably seen some by now.) There's intelligent and sometimes witty dialogue. Best of all, there's the fast pace common to the better pre-code films which, like this one, pack more plot and action into sixty minutes than today's two and a half hour epics.

Don't expect a real wild pre-coder, just a well-done romantic drama, and enjoy if that's your thing.

As we all know, Las Vegas casino owners, especially in the 1950s, were straight-shooting public benefactors protected by incorruptible local law enforcement. In this film, casino owner Dennis O'Keefe is threatened by three out-of-town hoods with the brilliant scheme of forcing him at gunpoint to sign a contract turning his casino over to them. Sounds like an airtight plan but you'll be glad to know virtue triumphs in the end.

Colleen Gray, as a repressed high school math teacher from Oakland, or something like that (it's a bit unclear), has the brilliant idea of coming to Las Vegas to write a book with the shocking revelation that tourists at the casinos lose money. Naturally it's love at first sight when she and O'Keefe meet and she changes her mission to protecting him. Why? Despite the protestations of the cops he keeps insisting on facing the crooks single-handed in a couple of unconvincing faceoffs.

Meanwhile there are three subplots about tourist couples, two of which treat compulsive gambling with some seriousness before implausible happy endings. The third, about two hicks from Nebraska, is just flat-out silly.

O'Keefe, after a brutal beating from the thugs, is up and about hours later with nary a scratch. Thomas Gomez, as the chief thug, cutely nicknamed Gimp, has a bum leg, but in the climactic obligatory chase scene races up ladders and leaps off rooftops.

Despite the many flaws, fast-paced, some amusing scenes and dialogue, and quaint reminders of the era when Vegas was basically still a small town in the middle of the desert. OK as a fun time killer, but don't expect hard-boiled realistic film noir.

Really more of a murder mystery than a noir, with a Perry Mason-like final courtroom scene. One of those films where the detective keeps getting information a bit too easily.

It's about a public defender representing a murder suspect apprehended after fleeing a courtroom while on trial 12 years earlier. What gives it more interest than usual is its showing the changes in the suspects' live from 1938 to 1950 caused by the war, their involvement with the murder, and life in general.

Chief virtues: the fast pace without needless explanation, crisp dialog, and minor characters with their own personality, even if only onscreen briefly.

Not a classic but hold yours interest and provides some food for thought. Perhaps a "B" picture but with quality production values you'd expect from RKO.

A film noir buff, I recently came across this film, which has all the hallmarks of a sharply focused Warner Brothers film noir, with an excellent cast and some scenic black-and-white cinematography somewhere in the southwestern desert.

A promising start features Ruth Roman as an actress seeking a dude ranch for her health (which appears unimpaired, by the way) who stumbles into an unresolved murder mystery involving Richard Todd (who appeared gorgeous even to this straight male) as a rancher acquitted of murdering his wife after two trials, the first ending in a conviction.

Roman and Todd "meet cute" and she becomes smitten with him before learning his identity. She becomes determined to establish his innocence once and for all to quiet area residents still harboring doubt.

At this point I was wondering why this film wasn't mentioned more among noir classics but then things started getting weird.

There are various subplots involving Todd's foster parents, from whom he is estranged, Mercedes McCambridge, both the owner of the now-shuttered dude ranch and juror responsible for Todd's acquittal, and Zachary Scott as an indolent playboy who seems a bit out of place in ranching territory.

Indeed there is an air of opulence, including a swank Beverly Hills-style dinner party at a ranch, that seems out of keeping with the setting. And Todd, is remarkably well dressed and groomed even when hiding out in the wilderness.

Eventually, with the plot and setting becoming progressively less realistic and various characters going into unexplained hysterics, the film seemed less noir than fantastic melodrama. However, it does resolve the murder mystery, if only via the indiscretion of the real culprit.

There's also a background story that eventually fades from the plot about a lovable priest with a Hispanic flock that perpetuates Hollywood stereotypes of childlike Mexicans speaking broken English and taking siestas against walls.

Despite my misgivings, I enjoyed the film on its own terms and wouldn't mind watching it again some time down the road. Good cast and cinematography and fast-paced enough to distract you from the anomalies.

I can't escape the feeling that many people have watched this film without realizing its real plot, one that would never have made the screen in 1949 if it had been more open, yet it's open enough once you realize that what seems to be the main plot is more of a subplot. This can't be explained without spoiling it. Hopefully you'll stop reading here, go watch the film, then come back and see if you agree with me.

SPOILER ALERT: STOP HERE / Repressed housewife Laraine Day has been having a brief affair with married man Franchot Tone. He comes to her house in the daytime to break it off, which he was always going to do anyway, because a detective has been coming around to his office, and other places they've been, asking questions about her and about their relationship.

While attempting to commit suicide (the first of two such attempts in the film) she accidentally kills him with a knife when he tries to prevent it.

For the rest of the film Day is in a state of madness. She does not try to escape or hide the crime but phones for a cab to take her to the police to turn herself in.

This is thwarted by the entrance of obnoxious brother-in-law Dane Clark, who launches a long verbal attack on her relationship with his brother, during which he manages to intercept the cab and dismiss it.

It turns out he's the one who hired the detective, and has arranged for both couples involved to meet at the house so he can humiliate Day and break up her marriage. Of course he is unaware that one of the participants is lying dead in the living room.

OK, big spoiler time. Remember you weren't supposed to look at this till you've seen the film. Turns out Tone isn't dead but got outside and taken to the hospital where he gallantly blames his wound on an accident. His wife Agnes Moorehead and Day's husband Bruce Bennett end up forgiving and forgetting, though with much more effort on Bennett's part after Day nearly succeeds in a second suicide attempt.

But the big spoiler is this: the movie isn't so much about adultery, manslaughter and suicide as about Clark's questionable brotherly love for big brother Bennett. His actions are those of a rejected lover trying to break up his flame's romance, the flame in this case being his brother. He talks about how happy the two of them were before Day came along and how happy they can be now if they go off together. His obnoxious personality switches to fawning overhelpfulness around Bennett. In fact Bennett himself finally realizes it in a key speech at the end where he goes so far as to blame Day's infidelity on Clark's repeated efforts to keep them apart.

In other words the film makers managed to sneak a plot about a homo-erotic incestuous attachment past the 1949 censors by diverting attention to a seeming murder mystery. Not your typical 1940s Hollywood flick.

This film is the life story of mega-wealthy Horace Vendig, as told in flashbacks at a party he's throwing in his own honor at his palatial estate. In these we see that he has attained his success by lying and cheating, betraying his partners and trampling on everyone who does him a good turn. He views the women in his life as trophies or stepping stones, and the general public as sheep to be fleeced.

For once, director Ulmer had enough money for some production values. Zachary Scott as Vendig is properly cold-blooded, Louis Hayward stalwart as the one friend finally disgusted and betrayed, and the rest of the cast, including bigger names than Ulmer usually could afford, is excellent,. The only problem with the movie is imagining an America populated by people supine and simple-minded enough to allow such an ogre to rise to the top.

Billed as the true story of an electronics expert of weak moral character who drifts into working for the mob, this film starts out as a well-made crime drama and turns into a tribute to the Rev. Billy Graham, who plays himself. Some people may be turned on or off by that, some may find it comical. Just letting you know.

"Shockproof" gets off to a solid start as a psychological crime drama. Cornel Wilde and Patricia Knight (then Wilde's real-life wife) are both attractive and convincing as a straight-arrow, somewhat naive, parole officer and a parolee in whom he takes far too personal an interest, portending trouble for both.

Without giving too much plot away, they end up on the lam, at which point both the action and the pair's decisions become increasingly less plausible, but well within the bounds of most viewers' willingness to suspend disbelief.

Ultimately the film makers seem to have painted themselves into a corner. The protagonists reach a point where any logical continuation can only lead to disaster for them. For whatever reason (studio pressure, perhaps) the last minute or so is the most blatantly improbable and unconvincing tacked-on happy ending in Hollywood history, or at least tied for that distinction.

So be forewarned: a gripping drama most of the way but the ending guaranteed to leave you figuratively scratching your head with a bad taste in your mouth. If you can overlook that, give it a whirl. If you can't, best watch something else.

Remember how the Perry Mason show always started with a drama about a bunch of unfamiliar characters, one of whom went out of his or her way to be nasty to all the others, leaving a nice collection of suspects for the viewer to sort through after he or she was murdered? The beginning of this film, made two years before the Mason show debuted, will bring back memories of those episodes. There's no shrewd defense attorney or even a courtroom scene but, again Mason-like, it was filmed in sunny 1950's L. A. with slick professionalism and an almost anonymous cast, with the exception of renowned noir femme fatale Marie Windsor.

As usual in such dramas, the cops set their sights on the wrong suspect. In this case, however, the suspects themselves work out who's the guilty party.

In brief, a straightforward well-made little whodunit that moves along briskly and should keep you engaged for eighty minutes or so.

Richard Widmark. Gloria Grahame. Lauren Bacall. Sounds like a grade-A film noir or mystery. Not to mention Charles Boyer, Lillian Gish, Paul Stewart, Susan Strasberg and Oscar Levant. What could go wrong?

How about an overlong talkfest where nothing much happens at a 50's- Hollywood style mental hospital that's more like a resort hotel for middle-class white folks who each have some minor tic they keep repeating over and over? And the key issue of the plot is which of three contending parties will get to choose the new drapes. Also a couple of suggestions of adultery that never reach fruition.

The staff members as well all keep hitting the same note over and over in this tedious script. You begin to fell sorry for the cast, particularly poor Gloria Grahame as the clinic director's wife, required to keep throwing tantrums over nothing.

There is a touch of mystery to the film. Why did MGM feel obliged to drag this slight material out to over two hours and film it in color and Cinemascope?

I have a lot of complaints about this movie yet I enjoyed it immensely and am glad I watched it, mainly inspired by the jazz standard based on the main motif of its score, which is excellent by the way. Recommended to all fans of the Golden Age despite the following quibbles.

1. Length: 2 hours 21 minutes is on the long side and I was planning to watch the DVD in two installments but got so engrossed I watched it in one sitting and could have sat through more.

2. Religiosity: There is a religious theme which may not appeal to some, like me for instance. However, it isn't hammered at you and doesn't take up too much of the running time, and there are many classics whose philosophy you or I may not agree with. If you're a devout Catholic you'll really love this movie.

3. Colonialism: Much of it is set during the Maori wars, when the New Zealand natives fought back against the intruders who took their ancestral lands, who of course are the protagonists. At least the Maoris (not acted by real Maoris, needless to say), although seen as a threat, are portrayed somewhat sympathetically. Of course a similar problem exists in many classic Westerns, and you can't change history.

4. Accents: All the main characters are English, as is the supporting cast, but the four leads are played by Americans, of whom only Hart makes much of a stab at sounding English. Heflin in particular sounds aggressively Midwestern. On the other hand, he kind of steals the picture in a strong performance as the most sympathetic character. Oh well, we're used to Cary Grant and Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Americans.

5. Lana Turner: I'm not a Lana Turner basher. In fact I think she was great in several movies. However, in the original novel the plot hinges on a wealthy merchant having two daughters, one beautiful and the other brainy but plain, and one of the heroes getting the wrong (not beautiful) one sent from England to New Zealand for him to wed due to a misunderstanding, back when that was a six-month sea voyage. Now, we know MGM wasn't going to cast someone actually ugly as the bride, but it muddles things to cast one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood in the role. It strains credulity that a guy on a remote plantation in 1860s New Zealand would give the cold shoulder to Lana Turner, clever and nuts about him to boot.

6: Black-and-white: Why didn't MGM film this big-money blockbuster, with spectacular scenery and special effects, in Technicolor? I have nothing against black-and-white movies, but this one screams for color. I never thought I'd say this, but I wouldn't mind seeing Ted Turner or someone take a whack at colorizing this one.