Tuesday, 31 October 2017

THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST (1945) / THE FROZEN GHOST (1945)

It wasn’t just Universal that unimaginatively mined the last dregs from their once-lucrative horror tropes in 1945. Poverty Row studios such as Republic did much the same, with at least an understandable lack of resources applied to them. The Vampire’s Ghost was a typical example; a bloodless and noticeably toothless double-bill programmer whose content matched the lack of care shown in the title: a (barely-qualifying) vampire with no reference to the spirit world and no need either since he’s already undead!

The dull story aims for an exotic setting by taking us to Africa “where the jungle is dark and full of secrets”. The studio backlot village of Bakunda, with its constant underscoring of jungle drums, is home to one such secret that is now out in the open - the realisation of four local murders that panic the plantation workers owned by Roy (Charles Gordon). All the bodies have dual neck puncture wounds in common and there are whispers of vampirism in their midst. Almost immediately we are introduced to the chief suspect, a sinister bar owner named Fallon - “Gaelic for stranger” we are heavy-handedly informed. In case this doesn’t raise enough suspicion, we see an unsettling supernatural power emanate from him after the integrity of his card-gaming is questioned in a scuffle. The thin, bulging-eyed Fallon disarms a knife-wielding sailor using a penetrating stare that is more laughable than intimidating.

It’s a less than creditable vehicle for classical Shakespearean stage actor John Abbott who played Peter Althius in our previously-reviewed Cry of the Werewolf. In that same year, 1944, he had shown shrewder judgement as the lead in the original stage version of the hit comedy Harvey (later memorably taken in the 1950 film by James Stewart). Abbott was convinced that the whimsical piece would work much better if the imagined six-foot tall rabbit was unseen except in his character’s mind. Playwright Mary Chase later agreed but only after Abbott was replaced.

He does his best in The Vampire’s Ghost to infuse Fallon with some depth, befitting an undead soul caught between relishing his power to convert the living and needing eternal release after 400 years of restless virtual immortality. Sadly, in his white imperialist gentleman’s suit he is more a bored ice-cream vendor than the Prince of Darkness, required to do nothing more horrific than a couple of glowerings and twice be on the receiving end of “a spear dipped in molten silver” which turns out not to be the best way to finish him off anyway.

As Roy, Gordon manfully struggles in vain to shake off Fallon’s occult influence over him. The latter confides in him his deep desire to ultimately be freed, going so far as to spill the spiritual beans by revealing that his body must be consumed in fire and the resulting ashes scattered. Not that the enslaved Roy can do anything about it. Nor can Grant Withers as the solid Father Gilchrist who predictably argues Roy’s candidacy for religious salvation: “The place for that help is the House of God”. Nor can club dancer Lisa (B-picture siren Adele Mara) who teams up with grizzled sailor Barrett (Poverty Row western stalwart Roy Barcroft) to get even with the cheating Fallon over the card table. Director Lesley Selander, who would later helm four years of the TV series Lassie (1955-59), ensures a fatal hounding of Barrett in retaliation, Fallon stalking him through the streets in a cursory foot-chase seemingly inspired by the walking close-up shots of Lewton and Tourneur’s films such as Cat People (1942). The only moments of style in the film are Fallon’s looming shadow falling upon Barrett pre-murder and a similar use of shadow-play in the climax.

For good measure, Fallon possesses a slightly wooden Peggy Stewart as Roy’s lover Julie, aiming for a partner to make his everlasting torment bearable. As of writing this, Ms Stewart’s longevity is doing very nicely without paranormal assistance in a screen career that recently entered her ninth decade. Fallon is finally relieved of his ethereal burden just before putting the bite on Julie - the one scene that at least has a vampire connection – by Roy confronting him with a crucifix. The cinematography attributed to Robert Pittack and Bud Thackery frames this nicely by casting the cross shadow upon his forehead, a vivid image that rounds off a thoroughly average B-movie.


THE FROZEN GHOST (1945)

1945 was The middle of 1945 was a disappointing time for ghost-hunters. After Republic’s May release of The Vampire’s Ghost alluded to non-existent phantoms, the fourth film in Universal’s Inner Sanctum series two weeks later, The Frozen Ghost, also contained zero spectral activity, being instead a reference to the suspended animation undergone by victims on-screen and possibly in the audience.
The Frozen Ghost was another chance for Universal to channel the luckless and tortured persona of Lon Chaney Jr into a scenario still capitalising on his doomed breakout role of 1941’s The Wolf Man. 

As with the previous entry, Dead Man’s Eyes, he is an innocent man convinced he is the unwitting architect of murder around him. Alex Gregor is a celebrated stage hypnotist who one night has to handle a belligerent drunk invited up during a live radio show broadcast. “It’s all done with mirrors” the lush insists. Wishing the rude man dead, Gregor finds that his power inadvertently just does that during the trance state. Although his loyal manager George Keene (Milburn Stone) emphasises the man was a terminal alcoholic, Gregor torments himself with guilt, the default setting for a Chaney protagonist. Stone went onto appear as Doc Adams across the entire twenty year run of TV’s Western show Gunsmoke and here gives a focused, slightly gangster-esque turn, a manner borne out by later plot developments.

Evelyn Ankers also works out her studio contract by being plugged in gamely as Gregor’s stage assistant and fiancĂ© Maura. She becomes part of a virtual love quartet encircling Gregor when he’s supposed to be gaining recuperative relief as a lecturing guest lodger at the wax museum run by Madame Monet (Tala Birell - Maxine in 1944’s The Monster Maker reviewed earlier). Gregor doesn’t know that Monet is painting him into a corner with her secret amorous self-interest. Meanwhile her niece Nina (Elena Verdugo) has a harmless crush on this showbiz superstar, recalling the more damaging obsession she had with Chaney’s Larry Talbot that caused destructive jealousy in House of Frankenstein (1944).

What meagre entertainment there is belongs to Douglass Dumbrille and Martin Kosleck on opposite sides of the law. Dumbrille’s distinguished demeanour graced a number of classic movies: Marx Brothers fans will know him from his beleaguered suave villainy in A Day at the Races (1937) and The Big Store (1941). Here, director Harold (The Mummy’s Tomb) Young allows him to adjust his trademark cool smugness to fighting crime as intrepid Inspector Brant, despite some ill-fitting slang accorded him by Bernard Schubert and Luci Ward’s dialogue. He gives a nicely underplayed nuance to lines like “You’re wrong Maura. I’m a very understanding man”.

As Hollywood’s resident purveyor of Nazi evil, Kosleck cleaves closer to type as a memorable ex-plastic surgeon turned sinister waxwork designer Rudi Polden. His identification with Teutonic terror was such that Kosleck played Hitler’s Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels in no less than five separate screen incarnations during a movie career spanning over fifty years. No prizes for guessing that his imperious, high-cheekboned presence and penchant for knife-throwing mark him out as a co-conspirator of harm. Less obvious though hinted at in performance is that Keene is his racketeering partner; together they schemed to unbalance Gregor into madness and sanitarium committal by drugging Gregor’s ‘victims’ into the aforementioned suspended state – though it’s uncertain how they could benefit from his presumed wealth.

Another logic gap appears courtesy of Gregor when he gains enough clarity through his self-flagellation to turn his very real hypnotic talent into making Maura vividly recall Keene and Rudi’s implication in Madame Monet’s bungled death. How could she remotely observe acts she wasn’t an actual witness to? Never mind; let us assume Gregor isn’t the only half of this couple with a genuine paranormal ability, and discard that howler as casually as Rudi’s accidental fall backwards into the furnace he intended to burn Nina in. With a rare levity, Chaney gets to end the film blithely telling Brant now that “It’s all done with mirrors”, although The Frozen Ghost is a pretty poor reflection of the actors available.



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