Movie review - "The Spider Woman Strikes Back" (1946) *1/2

Disappointing horror film despite the presence of Gale Sondegaard and Rondo Hatton. The Spider Woman was great in Sherlock Holmes but Universal struggled to use her in this spin off - it was hard to get a fix on her character. You know she's going to be bad because she's Sondegaard.

Her plan's convoluted - performing experiments to create a death serum that kills cattle and.. drives people off their land??? Boring! The character's not driven by anything interesting, like say love which drove Dracula or loneliness which drove Frankenstein's monster.

Brenda Joyce and her male co star Kirby Grant are dull (why not give him a proper job? Why not combine him with the Dept of Agriculture guy?). So is the subplot about unexplained cattle deaths. I mean you don't watch a horror film to be about reclaiming land.

Lazy climax with Sondegaard setting fire to the house. This was just crap.

Movie review - "The Monster Maker" (1944) **

Horror entry from PRC which feels like its cobbled from elements of other, earlier successful films, including The Raven, The Phantom of the Opera and Mad Love. J Carroll Naish adds some class in the lead, a mad doctor (the type usually played by Bela Lugosi) who falls for the daughter (Wanda Mackay) or a pianist (Ralph Morgan).

The fresh (ish) gimmick here is the doctor experiments in acromegaly, a form of excessive growth - people like Richard Kiel, Rondo Hatton and Anthony Robbins have/had it. (Rondo Hatton appeared in The Pearl of Death in 1944, so the disease must have been "in the air" in Hollywood, so to speak.)

Naish wants to get Mackay into the sack so injects dad with the disease, which is pretty full on. There's also a gorilla on the rampage and a girl who loves Naish.

This wasn't bad - the story is nasty, but production values (for a low budget flick) aren't bad and the acting surprisingly good. With a bit more care it could've been a lot better, but then I say that a lot about PRC films.

Movie review - "House of Horrors" (1946) ***

Rondo Hatton proved so popular as The Creeper in The Pearl of Death that Universal decided to give him his own starring vehicle. Well, technically it's his but the real lead is played by Martin Kosleck. He's the Dr Frankenstein equivalent, a selfish artist who gets so many bad reviews he decides to kill himself; however he comes across the Creeper (his version of the Frankenstein monster), befriends him and uses him to take out art critics.

That's a decent idea for a film, and it's helped by Kosleck's strong performance and Hatton's presence (greatly reduced whenever he has to say dialogue). There's also some colourful support roles with snobbish art critics, wisecracking gal reporters, cops and a macho cheesecake artist who is the leading suspect. Plus solid direction, and spirited work from Virginia Grey as the female lead. Better value than the second Hatton work, The Brute Man.

Movie review – Holmes #9 – “The Pearl of Death” (1945) ***1/2

Evelyn Ankers was best known for playing really likeable screaming damsels of distress in horror movies, so it’s fun to see her as a femme fetale, a jewel thief in cahoots with crime genius Miles Mander. This must have been a fun role for Ankers to do, as both she and Mander undertake a variety of disguises.

They are after an expensive pearl with a dark history, rather similar to the Koh-in-Noor diamond. Mander gets away with the pearl due to stuff up by Holmes, which is a fresh twist – he has to track it down. A lot of the film is scene from the point of view of Mander and Ankers – Holmes is playing catch up a lot of the time.

There’s a joker in a pack – a ruthless killer, the Creeper, who goes around breaking people’s backs. (The next time you hear some old soul go on about violence in the movies today, tell them about the Rathbone Holmes series – bodies chopped up and put in suitcases, a killer who breaks his victims backs, throats ripped out.)

This one has more gadgets – a book with a dagger that lunges out of it, secret messages on plates. There’s also a bigger role for Lestrade and a clever bit where Holmes listens in on a conversation between Ankers and Mander, then impersonates Mander.

Mander is a smart crook (he steals a pearl from under Holmes’ noses, gets a gun off Holmes due to Holmes’s monologuing) but even though he admits to Holmes he gets a lot of ideas from him, Holmes says he doesn’t like crooks like Mander because they have the stench of cruelty. Personally I think he’s just a poor loser. (Though it is contrived that Mander doesn’t shoot Holmes at the end when he has the chance – and lets him chat away turning the Creeper against Mander).

Rondo Hatton is a surprise in this one, as the Creeper with the crush on Evelyn Ankers, who is used by Ankers and Mander for evil ends. He’s not very smart though, being easily conned by Holmes then charging at him. Still, an effective villain, and his appearance packs a wallop.

This is very strong Holmes entry, a lot of fun. No real war talk at the end, just Holmes going on about people being greedy over pearls and wouldn’t it be nice if we weren’t like that.

Movie review – “The Brute Man” (1946) **1/2

The films made towards the end of the third cycle of Universal horrors (1939-46) are generally not highly regarded by aficionados, but this is the exception, mainly because of the presence of Rondo Hatton in the lead. Not only was it a rare Hatton starring vehicle, the plot has elements from Hatton’s real life. Hatton was a champion footballer and handsome college student who became disfigured; here it’s due to him getting angry and chucking a na-na during science detention at college. Ten years later he goes looking for revenge.

Hatton is a compelling performer, mostly because of his appearance Actually, entirely due to his appearance – he’s not that crash hot when given a lot of dialogue, so his speaking is sensibly kept to a minimum. Hatton’s Creeper is reasonably sympathetic here - but he's still a psycho killer. He is given a blind girl to have a romance with – the Creeper is so dim he doesn’t figure it out she's blind until their second meeting. The blind girl must be lonely for company – on their first meeting Creeper says there are some people after me, and the blind girl doesn’t turn him into the cops, without knowing anything about him. Then he goes and buys a watch for her, but he doesn’t have the money – so he kills the shop assistant. He also kills a snooping delivery boy.

With a little bit more care this could have been a lot better. For instance, they should have focused the script on the Creeper’s revenge – giving him a better motive than my-old-college-mate-gave-me-wrong-answers-and-got-me-on-detentino-causing-me-to-have-a-major-accident. They should have done something really nasty to him, so his revenge would have been more fun. And they don’t introduce the pay-for-blind-girl-operation motive until 40 minutes in – this should have been done earlier. Also they could have had more romance between the Creeper and the blind girl. (They sort of hint at a romance between the blind girl and the slightly creepy cop at the end).

But it’s definitely watchable, and even though the pathos isn’t as skilfully wrought as in the best Frankenstein and Wolfman movies, Hatton’s presence gives it a gravitas lacking in other Universal movies. Jean Yarborough was a decent enough director (he did a number of Abbott and Costellos) and ensures this has a professional sheen. I also enjoyed some of the squabbling amongst the police as they fail to solve the murder, and it's fun to see Tom Neal as Hatton's college friend.