Movie review - "Gypsy Wildcat" (1944) *** (warning: spoilers)

 Looking for variation in the Maria Montez formula, Universal came up with gypsies, and I guess why not... you have outfits, and dances, and gypsy hotblood-ness plus some nobles. Maria is a gypsy girl who turns out to be noble. Gale Sondegaard is a gypsy, Jon Hall an agent for the king. Peter Coe is in the Turhan Bey part as a gypsy in love with Montez who I kept waiting to turn evil. Other cast members include Leo Carillo, Douglas Dumbrille and Nigel Bruce - studio pictures really had their perks.

It's in colour but not lush colour. It feels like a black and white movie (Roy William Neill directed).  I've reviewed this film before and a lot of my previous thoughts still remain. It isn't as lush visually, has resonance because it's about gypsies, it's weird that James Cain wrote it.

Still fun, even if colour is wasted.

Movie review - "Cobra Woman" (1944) **** (re-watching)

 Some very smart people working on this - George Waggner, Robert Siodmak, Richard Brooks. It is silly but done with utter conviction, gorgeous colour and a lot of smarts. It's a combination of South Seas and Lost World as Maria Montez is abducted on her wedding day by people of her island who want her to rise up against her twin sister. Fiance Jon Hall goes to rescue her.

Montez gets to emote and wear an array of outfits. Hall does sturdy heroic stuff absolutely fine. Sabu is engaging and has stuff to do. There are outlandish sets and the cobra dance plus some decent conflict in that evil Montez wants to hop on and bang Hall, and an evil priest Edgar Barrier wants to marry bad Montez. Only 71 minutes!

Mary Nash is the old queen and Lois Collier has quite a lot of screen time as a good island maiden.

Grand fun.

Movie review - "Sudan" (1945) *** (re-watching)

 I'd be curious to know the development of this script. It starts out like a more stock Jon Hall-Maria Montez romance, with Montez as a queen sold into slavery by evil George Zucco. She is rescued by Jon Hall and Andy Devine, and I assume Devine was standing in for Sabu.

But then along comes Turhan Bey, who rescues Montex from some attackers... and Bey and Montex have this romance (It's implied they have sex).  Then Montez, Hall and Devine go back to the palace, Zucco leads a coup... and it's Hall who is tortured, and escapes and helps rescue Montez. And they get Bey.

There's a genuine love triangle because Hall loves Montez... but Bey is heroic too. And at the end Bey goes off with Montez - and she seems quite happy about it. Yet Hall gets a lot of sympathy (and second billing).  Bey is a bit wet to be an action hero - that careful enunciation is better suited for lounges.

Zucco offers expert villainy the sets and photography are fantastic. There's some impressive spectacle. Some dances and action.

Movie review - "Arabian Nights" (1942) *** (re-viewing)

 A cheerful knock off of Thief of Bagdad - plenty of colour and movement, beautiful photography. Maria Montez plays the one sort of role she could play - a haughty danger. The script gleefully pillages old myths and stories: Montez plays Scherenadze, there's comic support characters Aladdin and Sinbad, plus Jon Hall as a secret prince and Sabu helping out. There's a fair bit of torture - Turnhan Bey appears as a cad who is tortured, and some other bloke is on the rack too.

Some action, dancing girls, a big fight. It set the template for the later Universal Easterns with Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson..

John Rawlins directed. He's not very famous but he does a dcent job. The studio techs are probably more to be praised.

Movie review - "On the Isle of Samoa" (1950) **1/2

 Jon Hall rarely played a villain but it did him the world of good. Opening scene is set in Sydney (!) with a moustached Hall robbing a business partner whose wife he was rooting. He leaves them both to get on a plane and takes off... and crashes on an island. There he discovers a paternalistic former doctor who has dropped out and is a kindly old protective man (another thief would've been better dramatically) and a dopey-eyed island girl, played by a very young Susan Cabot.

It's in black and white which is a shame though that does suit the noir opening. (They could've gone to colour once he landed on Samoa).

It's one of Hall's best ever roles - a crim who gets redeemed. He takes his shirt off in lagoon scene and looks out of shape, ducking into the shade.

This probably lacks another criminal character to cause trouble for Hall (and be extra heroic). I did like the convenient volcano. At the end when he hands himself in, isn't he going to prison forever?

Movie review - "White Savage" (1943) ***1/2 (re-watching)

 Effective because it's simple. A romance between fisherman Jon Hall and princess Maria Montez - simple conflict (he's rough and she's hoity toity) with Sabu hanging around. The complication is from Thomas Gomez trying to discover some treasure and being hot for Montez. This is simple, logical and well developed. Lovely colour and sets and briskly handled.

Movie review - "Invisible Man's Revenge" (1944) *** (re-watching)

 Fun. Jon Hall has a more character role - as a man conked on the head, which has made him insane, sent to a Cape Town psychiatric hospital, he escapes, goes home for revenge, runs into mad doctor John Carradine who turns him invisible. Solid entry, decent effects. Evelyn Ankers offers beauty, Gale Sondegaard and Carrdine offer strong support.

Jon Hall Top Ten

 In no particular order

1) The Hurricane

2) White Savage

3) The Invisible Man's Revenge

4) San Diego, I Love You

5) Last of the Redman

6) China Corsair

7)Aloma of the South Seas

8) Cobra Woman

9) Prince of Thieves

10) (for sheer camp) The Beach Girls and The Monster

Movie review - "The Hurricane" (1937) ***** (warning: spoilers)

 Not one of John Ford's most "personal films" which means there's not a lot of annoying Irish comedy. But it is a Ford movie: there is lyricism, beautiful photography and handling, lingering over depictions of ceremonies (a wedding), a portrayal of a tight-nit outpost, a drunken Thomas Mitchell, a martinet (Raymond Massey).

This has two superb villains, both entirely believable types: John Carradine as a nasty overseer, and Raymond Massey as a self righteous "I must enforce the law" type.

Hall and Lamour are very sweet. This was Hall's best film and performance - he is full of youthful energy and charm, a bright smile, with the drama deck stacked in his favour. The injustice of his cause is excellently conveyed: picked on because he's a native, slapped in the face, punches a man who happens to be well connected, given six months harshly, ignored by pompous Massey, beaten by guards, driven to suicide, eventually escaping. Carradine's look of triumph when this happens is chilling as is Massey's look of delight when Hall kills a guard - you can see the vindication in their eyes. This is all too familiar from people we see today.

Indeed, I was kind of disappointed Massey didn't die in the hurricane - he deserved to - and that Hall didn't kill Carradine - indeed, deserved. I wouldn't have minded if Thomas Mitchell, the boozy doctor, had died and felt for nice C Aubrey Smith and his parishoners being killed in a church which is wiped out. But that's a strength of the film - it "goes there".

You could argue the island cops the hurricane from God because it helps Hall. Just saying.

Movie review - "Last Train from Bombay" (1952) **1/2

 Jon Hall's last film for Sam Katzman sees him looking a little chunky and puffy - the lithe days were long gone. He wears a suit most of the time, he just doesn't seem as active as before.

The best thing about this movie is its setting - it takes place in India post-Independence during clashes with Pakistan. Hall is a diplomatic ("the vice counsel at Lucknow") tracking down an old friend who turns up dead and involved in an assassination attempt against a noble.

The piece doesn't quite work - it's very start stop - but it has novelty in its setting (albeit this means plenty of brownface). But when the action moves it's enjoyable. There's fistfights and assassinations and Hall steals a plane and parachutes out, pulls over a car, escapes from a guard house... it's got a serial feel. It's quite fun in the second half apart from puffy Hall. Decent support cast.

Movie review - "The Lion Man" (1936) **

Cheapie which was I think the first leading role for Jon Hall. That's how he was billed in the version I saw but I think that was a re-release after Hall became famous. Hall was billed as "Charles Loucheur".

It's stuff about a man who goes to live in a desert with his kid. He is killed (quite sad to see the boy embracing his dad's corpse) and he is raised by another Arab. It's similar to stuff Hall/Loucheur later made with Maria Montez: there's a white woman, a native woman hot for him.

I saw a poor copy of it - the photography was lousy. The handling is awkward and clunky. Hall is amiable - handsome, virile, all that. He doesn't appear until 30 minutes in (it's a one hour movie) but holds the screen.

I had read this was based on an Edgar Rice Burroughs story but apparently it wasn't and Burroughs sued them to try and get the name changed because he thought people would think it was based on Tarzan and the Lion or The Lad and the Lion. See here. Eventually they came to a settlement where they agreed that it was based on the story see here.

Ride of the Valkyries is used on the soundtrack. Presumably music stock.

Movie review - "Tuttles of Tahiti" (1942) **

 Jon Hall leapt to fame in a Nordhoff-Hall adaptation, The Hurricane, so it's not surprising to see him in another one. This was made at RKO, not known for South Seas tales - which may explain why it's shot in their pleasant black and white noir.  It was directed by Charles Vidor.

Hall is second billed - the above the title star is Charles Laughton. Hall returns home to Tahiti (where Hall grew up IRL), to rejoin his family headed by Laughton. This isn't really a standard South Seas tale, with island princesses and volcanoes and the like - it's more a wacky family comedy along the lines of Darling Buds of May or You Can't Take It With You with a charming paterfamilias and sprawling brood who never seem to work.

It's not that fun to watch - Laughton is always spending money, there's too much talk of money and loas. It lacks female interest - Hall's character really should be a female. There's a gal Hall kind of wants to marry (Peggy Drake) but her part isn't very big. Sher's just a dopey island girl - why not make her interesting to give it some conflict, like she's a stuffed shirt, or the daughter of the guy who has loaned Laughton money, or something.

Lughton's poor make up is annoying - he is given dark skin make up to make him Tahitian, I think, they just should made him English.

There are strong production values - a huge crowd at a cock fight, lots of extra greeting boats.

There's talk of a fighting chicken from Australia which is fun. It's owned by Florence Bates, whose duels with Laughton are the most entertaining aspect of the film. It's not really fun. Lacks atmosphere. Too hard. Too boysie. Laughton has a good moment when he thinks his kids have died.

Movie review - "Brave Warrior" (1952) **

 Some Sam Katzman fun, with a Robert E. Kent script, Jon Hall in the lead, Columbia colour and a slightly random time period for a Western: the War of 1812. Jay Silverheels is Chief Tecumsah, Michael Ansara as the Prophet, and James Seay as William Harrison - all real people.

History is distorted but it at least provides some novelty. It borrows from the Broken Arrow playbook by having a contrast between peaceful Silverheels and bloodthirsty Ansara, and Jon Hall as an Indian agent who has to battle corrupt whites.

It's got a sluggard pace and is hard to care. I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong. I think it was just dull. Lacked vivid characters. The colour is lovely.

The most memorable character is Tecumsah. He's in love with a white woman who throws him over for Hall, he has to fight against his brother who dies, the whites kill his people, he's left alone... But, er, he feels good about it because Hall and the girl are good. I think. It's unexpectedly moving and complex - far more so than the film.

Movie review - "Hell Ship Mutiny" (1957) **

 Jon Hall tried to get up another TV series and made some pilots - while he couldn't sell them, he turned them into this film. There's some classy names on the credits - the cast includes John Carradine, Mike Mazurski and Peter Lorre, Elmo Williams edited and directed (along with lee Sholem).

It's a return to the south seas adventures with Hall as an adventurer boating around the Pacific - not dissimilar to Adventures in Paradise but that was a hit. Presumably this annoyed Hall. I guess he was getting on.

It's not very good. It feels like cobbled television. Lots of sets, darkened nighttime scenes, fake South Sea backlot recreations. Stop-start plot. Island girls, kissing, moonlight, all that... just rote.

Lorre livens things up the most.

Movie review - "Deputy Marshall" (1949) **

 Jon Hall didn't make that many Westerns in his career but if you were an action leading man of the 1940s you couldn't really escape sometime in the saddle so here he is in an effort for Robert Lippert. 

The plot is very stock - Hall is a marshall who comes across an old timer with a map that involves a railroad scheme. The old timer is killed and Hall gets involved in fixing it.

The cast has some novelty - Hall's real life wife at the time, singer Frances Langford, plays his love interest here, and she sings a song. Dick Foran, who starred in some B Westerns, is a baddie.  Julie Bishop is second female lead.

William Berke directed. He made a few films with Hall around this time. Berke liked to use close ups, so this plays well on television, and knew how to stage an action film. But it's a clunky, sluggardly film.  I guess it's not a bad story (I couldn't pick the final twist), it's just very familiar.

Movie review - "Sailor's Lady" (1940) **

 A three gals and three guys "fleet's in" movie - the sort that normally has colour and songs but this one has neither. The three guys are Jon Hall, Dana Andrews and Wally Vernon - the gals include Nancy Kelly and Joan Davis. Buster Crabbe, whose career has some similarities with Hall, plays a sailor keen on Kelly.

The pacing is slow and there's an un-fun aspect to it: Dana Andrews hates dames because of a divorce and wants Hall to not marry Kelly (who has adopted a baby without telling Hall first). 

The last act involves the baby on a warship and Hall and Andrews go into the background and it becomes the officers, who play it straight... as if the filmmakers were concerned about getting co operation.

I get the comedy this was going for - cute shenanigans on a ship with a baby - but the film doesn't really do it. The characters all blend in. There's not enough women involved. Subplots feel unresolved.  I didn't like it.

Movie review - "Aloma of the South Seas" (1941) ***

 Jon Hall and Dorothy Lamour were a huge hit together in The Hurricane but she was at Paramount and he was with Goldwyn then Universal so they only made one other film together, this one. It's a cute story, with the duo playing a couple who were betrothed as kids and then reunite as grown ups, after he's been to America.

It hits all the tropes - there's frolicking in lagoons, waterfalls, sarongs, colour, native feasts, volcano, a wedding ceremony. Lamour chuckles about Hall threatening to punch her.

Hall and Lamour are an amiable couple - she was a better actor than Maria Montez, warm and sympathetic. The show is stolen by Philip Reed as Hall's jealous nephew who wants Lamour - in one scene he casually shoots a random to death to scare Lamour. Another scene Reed confronts Hall with a rifle and as Hall approaches the action cuts back to Hall as a kid (Scotty Beckett I think) taunting the Reed character.

Someone called Lynne Overman is the comic relief. Katherine de Mille (Cecil's daughter) is in love with Reed.

Solid melodrama, cast and production values. Not directed with particular verve but it ticks all the boxes.

In her memoirs, Lamour wrote that Hall's nickname was Casanova "because he was known to disappear from the set for a romantic fling with any lovely girl who came along."

Movie review - "Hurricane Island" (1951) **1/2

 I love it how Sam Katzman tried to make his Westerns a little different. I mean, he still has Indians attacking white men, but this one is about Spanish Conquisators in Florida. It was written by David Matthews, who clearly liked to throw in a bit of history... this has a real character, Jose Ponce de Leon (played by Egar Barrier), on a real search, the Fountain of Youth.  (I wonder if "David Matthews" was a pseudonym for Robert E. Kent.)

Jon Hall is a Spanish officer - not entirely well cast, but he ambles upon in his Jon Hall way. The reason they're after the Fountain of Youth is because de Leon has been injured by Indians. The local withdoctor says they need to go to the land where he's wounded - it sounds like this story was an African set tale.

Marie Windsor is a female pirate which is awesome. She goes on board a ship with a lot of other women (hookers). There's cat fights, a wise old Indian woman who ages when she gets away from the Fountain, a hurricane. It's all bonkers mad fun.

Movie review - "China Corsair" (1951) ***

 Not produced by Sam Katzman but it was done at Columbia and is typical of Katzman product - a B adventure picture starring Jon Hall. This has him in Alan Ladd mode, gambling in the "far East" on the backlot (cue yellowface... including Ernest Borgnine as a Chinese).

Second male lead is Ron Randell who must've looked at Hall and gone "why aren't I playing the lead I'm a better actor" but then Randell never had a hit like the Montez films or The Hurricane. 

Lisa Ferraday is the female lead, a Chinese who is engaged to Britisher Randell. She's a complete bad ass - a former pirate with a do gooder uncle who wants to sell some jewels to Randell to make money for the poor or something. Randell double crosses the uncle and kills him. Ferraday goes back to piracy, catches up to Randell and Ferraday's female sidekick (called "Lotus") kills him (half way through the film! Poor Randell). Really Ferraday should have done this but it's still pretty cool.

At this stage Jon Hall hasn't done much in the movie except been a bystander on the boat, but he recognises Ferraday and wants her to pay him money because she was responsible for him losing it at a gambling den. He sort of tags along as a support payer until Ernest Borgnine double crosses Ferraday leading to a shoot out on the high seas.

So it's about modern day pirates, some of whom are female, which is interesting. 

This was a little cracker of a film.

Movie review - "Last of the Redmen" (1947) *** (warning: spoilers)

 Last of the Mohicians had been a big hit for Edward Small but he didn't follow it up. Sam Katzman, who was a slightly cheaper version of Edward Small, decided to have his own crack at the novel, and he would do a bunch of other films set in the French Indian Wars.

This has a bigger budget than later Katzman efforts - it's in colour, has impressive production values (well, at the beginning and end... they avoid any siege scenes at Fort William Henry), and benefits from a strong cast. Jon Hall plays Duncan Heyward, normally a villain (the stuffy Pom), Michael O'Shea is Hawkeye, Evelyn Ankers and Julie Bishop are the girls, Buster Crabbe is Magua, Rick Vallin is Uncas.

O'Shea plays Hawkeye as a scuffy Irishman, which actually works quite well, because it plays up the conflict between him and the stuffy Brits. Hall, who one normally would assume would play Hawkeye, is the Brit soldier and is effective too. Crabbe is really good as the tormented Magua.

There's some annoying kid, the girl's brother, who pretends to be an Indian, plus Uncas the Indian friend of Hawkeye who gets to kill Magua. I liked the scene where Ankers tried to seduce Hall. And it's moving at the end when Hawkeye stands by the grave of Bishop (stabbed to death) and Uncas.

George Sherman directed.