1961 - THE HAPPY THIEVES, the unhappy audience.

This thing seemed like it was constantly showing up on the 10:30 late show when I was growing up.  I remember it was supposed to be some kind of heist thriller comedy story but all I really remember was it involved carrying paintings around a museum.  At the time I thought the film was pretty lame and guess what, the film is still pretty lame.

Rita Hayworth and Rex Harrison are the stars of this so called "caper" film.  But only Rex Harrison as one of those dashing thief types is actually any good.  In fact I think it's safe to say that Harrison drags this film along with a lot of charm and a very smooth performance.

The Happy Thieves is really not worth anyone's time.

88 minutes, written by John Gay.

1962 - HOW THE WEST WAS WON, on Blu Ray

The Blu Ray producers spruced up a lot of this film, erasing most of the lines in the three camera filming process and generally cleaning things up quite a bit.  The film looks fairly spectacular at times if not completely perfect.  Of course you can't duplicate the Cinerama experience on a home screen.

The film itself was always kind of lumpy mess of a story.  It follows one family, the Prescott's as they move west with that "manifest destiny" attitude that gave white European Americans a reason
to go anywhere and take anything they wanted.  But I can be a little more charitable now since the whole story is just an excuse to film a bunch of spectacular scenes in the 3 camera process that at times still look very impressive.

MGM loaded up the film with an "all star" cast signing just about everyone they could think of but the film seems to focus mostly on two actors George Peppard and Debbie Reynolds.  Three directors were hired, George Marshall, John Ford and Henry Hathaway.  Hathaway ended up directing most of the film and apparently re-shot Marshall's footage.  Ford had a lot of trouble filming in the large screen process and the results were deemed marginal at best but nobody had the nerve to rework his footage since most people were afraid of him. 

162 minutes, written by James R. Webb.

1946 - THE BLUE DAHLIA, not classic film noir

Raymond Chandler's only original screenplay is a disappointing mess which highlights the worst aspects of his writing, improbable plotting in a completely confusing mystery that makes absolutely no sense.  Chandler was good at characterization and hard boiled dialog but even this seems pretty second rate.

This film is so out of it we get one of the lamest cliched scenes in mystery films, gathering all of the suspects in one room while the police sort out who did what to whom.

Raymond Chandler was a notorious alcoholic and Hollywood legend has it that the director George Marshall and the producer John Houseman had to keep him liquored up in order to get him to finish the screenplay.  This story is probably close to the truth, The Black Dahlia is disappointing compared to other film adaptations like Murder My Sweet and The Big Sleep.

The Black Dahlia was known for the re-teaming of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake a screen team for Paramount in 1940's film noir.  The film also stars William Bendix a popular character actor as a World War II vet with a few mental problems a character done to death in films.

Veronica Lake is kind of interesting to look at however The Blue Dahlia is one of those "classic" films that really doesn't deserve it's classic status.  The film is essentially a mediocre murder mystery.

Pretty worthless film.

96 minutes.

1940 - THE GHOST BREAKERS, Bob Hope's Night of the Living Dead

Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard's follow up to their hit film The Cat and the Canary. This is another comedy/thriller. The very Caucasian Goddard improbably plays the heiress to a spooky mansion near Cuba called Black Island. There are strange rumors of voodoo and a zombie is running around on the island to complicate things a little more. Hope goes along to protect her and solve the mystery. 

 

 

Bob Hope gets to toss off the one liners and Paulette Goddard does a decent job not playing her part as a whimpering frightened female. Probably the only uncomfortable part of the movie is the African American actor Willie Best as Hope's manservant. He's funny and saves the day but the racial stereotyping is tough to sit through.

 

  

 Coming in under 90 minutes the movie is entertaining if undemanding. 

 

 

 

Written by Walter DeLeon and Hope's uncredited gag writers, the running time is 83 minutes.