BATTLE BENEATH THE EARTH (1967)

This ultra-low-rent thriller for the Kiddie Matinee crowd imagines an underground network of tunnels being prepped by a rogue Communist Chinese General for an American invasion! Fear not, our best scientific mind (and ear!) is on the case, closely listening to the activity with his ear pressed to a Las Vegas sidewalk! Now, if we can only count on the military to get this nutcase genius out of the loony bin and off to combat headquarters! You don’t find this level of silliness everyday and, for much of its running time, the cheesy production values & straight-arrow acting are plenty fun to watch, along with a plot that looks back to DR. NO/’62 and forward to MOONRAKER/’79. Fantasy film star Kerwin Matthews deserved something classier for his last leading role, but megger Tully Montgomery makes his particle-board budget look even worse than it has to with camera set-ups that force his cast to unnaturally twist their heads just to make eye contact. Still, who’d want to miss the set decoration on the General’s underground field office: Chinese screens, ornamental vases and a fresh pineapple on the desk. He’s taking the Hawaiian route in.

THE IRON LADY (2011)

No doubt, a straightforward bio-pic on Britain’s transforming Conservative/Tory Prime Minister was never a possibility. But it was an odd (and largely unsatisfying) idea to tell the tale via flashes of suspect memory as the retired P.M. drifts toward senility. And not much helped by a production that looks cable-ready, at best. An obvious plan might have shown her trying to hang on to power, after alienating most of her own party, while we jump back to see how her political principles grew out of a middle-class upbringing as a grocer’s daughter; her start in politics & the unlikely rise over the usual ‘suits; how her career was ‘saved’ by a ‘lucky’ war, only to watch it all go sour before she's ready to leave the scene. An even better idea might simply have stuck with the Young Margaret, it's the best/most revealing part of the film as Alexandra Roach’s young & bristly Thatcher finds her voice and her life partner in Harry Lloyd’s amused portrayal of young Denis Thatcher, a man who doted on her prickly personality and her paradoxically lofty, yet down-to-earth manner. Of course, that would have left out the film’s raison d’être, Meryl Streep’s powerhouse Maggie T., along with any commercial shot at the American market.* She’s certainly something in the role, though the ghost of Greer Garson keeps veering into view. Or did Mrs. Thatcher actually use Garson’s manner as a lady-like speaking/fashion template? And while the economic issues of the day have been ludicrously simplified and Argentine’s military might is probably misrepresented**, the film is neither a whitewash nor a hatchet job. And unexpectedly watchable.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Included with the Extras is a little puff piece on three other ‘historicals’ from the Weinstein Co.: CORIOLANUS/’11 via ‘director’ Ralph Fiennes; IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY/’11 from ‘director’ Angelina Jolie; and W./E./’11 out of ‘director’ Madonna. With a combined Stateside gross around 6 mill., these Harvey Weinstein vanity pics are ‘star f**king’ losses comparable to Sheldon Adelson’s Republican Super-PAC funding.

DOUBLE-BILL: **If you can roust up a copy, there’s a good Argentinian pic on the Falklands War from the POV of some conscripted Army grunts called BLESSED BY FIRE/ILLUMINADOS POR EL FUEGO/’05 that shows how politically motivated & ill prepared the invasion actually was.

THE WOMAN IN BLACK (2012)

This Gothic Ghost story about a Haunted House in a Haunted Village where a Haunted Spectre makes Haunted Kiddies do themselves in has all the ingredients to make your flesh crawl. But it’s overcooked, with script & direction that make everything go bump-in-the-night, so the shock effects bring diminishing returns. By the last act, it’s the audience who’s rolling their eyeballs. Speaking of eyeballs, a spectacle-free Daniel Radcliffe is fine, if a decade too young, as the widower who’s sent up to settle the estate and finds the deathly hallows . . . er . . . apparition while Ciarán Hinds, as a friendly local who pooh-poohs the occult, gets good horror mileage out of his hangdog face. The film is something of a resurrection for the old Hammer Studios and, much like their famous '50s horror pics, the storytelling doesn’t keep pace with the elegant visuals. Fourteen producers on this, and not a one of them figured out how to take proper narrative advantage of the wild country landscape or an evening tide that puts the only road to the mansion under water.

DOUBLE-BILL: Naturally, Wilkie Collins’ THE WOMAN IN WHITE. The famous Victorian shocker has been filmed many times and a recent tv version (shown on Masterpiece Theatre in 1997) may take liberties with the story, but it also has a real gasp-worthy ‘reveal’ on the main mystery.

KNUTE ROCKNE ALL AMERICAN (1940)

While this loudly sentimental bio-pic retains a dollop of fame as the film where Ronald Reagan tells his coach to ‘win one for the Gipper,’ there’s not much else memorable in this programmer. Pat O’Brien was an odd kind of movie star and, as the eponymous Notre Dame football coach, he uses the same unpleasant manner & brusque delivery he brought to all his roles.* (And Warner Bros. did him no favors with a blondish receding hairline that makes him look like Jack Benny.) Add in some by-the-numbers megging from Lloyd Bacon and the film threatens to come to a complete standstill. As the loyal Rockne wife who hopes for a bit of vacation time, Gale Page is a complete nonentity. (She’d soon fade from the screen.) And even Reagan is a bit, well, amateurish, though his sheer presence is formidable. (The acting would quickly improve.) A decent supporting cast walk thru their roles (has Donald Crisp ever done less?) with the film only fitfully coming to life during some archival footage that features lots of lateral passing (yeah!) and during a sequence that shows how Knute was inspired to create a ‘shifting offense’ after watching an all-gal chorus line. If only Bacon could have bothered to stage it with a little pizzazz. By the way, the ‘K’ in Knute is sounded.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *For O’Brien, the exception to the rule came in his co-starring vehicles with pal James Cagney. TORRID ZONE/’40 lets them work up a fine vaudevillian rhythm of mutual respect & loathing that gives O’Brien’s dyspeptic line readings something they can bounce off of. Nothing sticks to Cagney when he’s wearing that awful little moustache he grew to annoy boss Jack Warner.

JITSUROKU RENGO SEKIGUN / UNITED RED ARMY (2007)

The late Kôji Wakamatsu was just past 70 when he made this grim, but compelling film about the small, but lethal local Maoist cult that emerged in Japan like a toxic residue after the mass global student uprisings of the late-‘60s had evaporated. The opening half hour plays out as docu-drama, with newsreel clips of the period interspersed with recreations and perhaps too much expository narration. But hang in there because the film soon evolves into a full character piece. Once the authorities start taking out key members of the ultra-left, we follow two of the most extreme organizations who join forces to secretly train in the hills for their soon-to-come labors as catalyst to the revolution with acts of violence & anarchy. But when the small cult of true-believers find themselves removed from capitalist hostilities & constant police surveillance, they start turning on themselves with deadly tests of communist purity tearing them apart from within. Political self-delusion soon has them ‘drinking the Kool-Aid’ of revolutionary correctness while the authorities, more felt than seen, start to close in. Not an easy watch, and as emotionally dry as late-Godard, but powerfully argued by Wakamatsu who shows the control of a master.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: How odd that these young militants question every aspect of their own culture & society (quite rightly, too), yet blindly parrot whatever New Order dogma they are fed.

BLOODHOUNDS OF BROADWAY (1952)

This Damon Runyon adaptation was trying to hitch a ride on the GUYS AND DOLLS bandwagon. (The film version of the hit B’way musical wouldn’t come out till ‘55.) But there’s little Runyon flavor to be had in this tale of a backwoods gal (Mitzi Gaynor) who reforms Scott Brady’s Times Square wiseguy. In fact, little flavor of any kind. What a colorless crew of lowlifes, hangers-on, sharpies & book-makers the guy runs around with! To say nothing of the forgettable dames & coppers. Five or six musical numbers get shoe-horned in, but only a trio for Gaynor, Mitzi Green & dancer Richard Allan (‘I’ve Got a Feelin’ You’re Foolin’‘) puts out a bit of larky energy. And we get two (count ‘em, 2!) hayseed 'numbos.' Credit dance director Robert Sidney rather than helmer Harmon Jones for the lift & the corn.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Mitzi Gaynor had it all: looks, voice, legs, steps . . the works. Yet, frustratingly, she makes almost no impression other than cheery ultra-competence. She’s a flawless Ms. Efficient when we want Ms. Memorable, flaws & all. An interview with her in the Extras (she's remarkably well-preserved, sharp & funny), lets her review her incredibly smooth career-track. Maybe the lack of obstacles partially explains what’s missing on screen.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Frank Capra's LADY FOR A DAY/'33 is the great Damon Runyon film; and Lucille Ball had a couple of winners with THE BIG STREET/’42 and SORROWFUL JONES/’49. (Check out the latter to imagine the Adelaide & Nathan Detroit that Ball & Bob Hope might have made in a dream version of GUYS AND DOLLS.)

CONTEST: Spot the uncredited future star seen here as one of Brady’s gang, and name the other film he made in ‘52 playing a comic gangster to win a MAKSQUIBS Write-Up of any NetFlix DVD. As always, no Googling or IMDb, please. What would Runyon have said?

STATE'S ATTORNEY (1932)

John Barrymore’s journalist pal (later his biographer) Gene Fowler did him no favors on this poorly structured legal drama. It breaks up the remarkable run of performances Barrymore gave from ‘32 to ’34, before alcohol took him out of action and largely reduced him to supporting roles. Playing a heavy drinking attorney to the rich & corrupt, he falls for one of his clients, Helen Twelvetrees, very sympatico as call-girl turned mistress. But when he switches sides to become the new State’s Attorney, setting up a likely run for Governor, he finds himself compromising whatever remains of his professional integrity, even leaving his mistress for a proper wife. Fowler (or someone) had a nice idea here with Barrymore’s character losing principles as he gains sobriety, kicking out tru-love for a respectable wife. But nothing in the direction (from an over-parted George Archainbaud), story construction or in Barrymore’s undisciplined burlesque manner adds up . . . and the drinking plays into Jack’s worst habits. (Very different then the tragic alcoholic actor, Barrymore would soon play in DINNER AT EIGHT/’33.)

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Barrymore is at his greatest as the attorney in William Wyler’s superb adaptation of Elmer Rice’s COUNSELLOR AT LAW/’33, the play that established Paul Muni as a B’way star.

MONTANA (1950)

You can almost feel Warner Bros. washing their hands of Errol Flynn (and his pricey contract) on this Western programmer. Minimal production values and a B-list megger (Ray Enright) do it in, yet the basic idea isn’t bad at all. It’s that old stand-by, Cattlemen vs Homesteaders, but nicely varied to play into Flynn’s Aussie roots as Cattlemen vs Sheepmen. Alexis Smith is on hand as a ranch owner ready to be romantically won over and S. Z. Sakall shows up driving a covered-wagon department store for comic relief. Too bad no one bothered to work out the plot & character turns, pulling the plug after a brief 76 minutes. Even shorter once you factor in a couple of musical numbers which at least seem to let Flynn & Smith do their own vocals. A nice touch even if Smith looks oddly uncomfortable in her tight costumes while Flynn looks just plain tight. Maybe that explains the unusual amount of stunt doubling for the aging matinee idol.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Flynn ran out his contract with happier results: a couple of decent loan-outs to M-G-M and a final Warners release, THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE/’53, one of his better late efforts.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: According to Flynn's auto-bio (MY WICKED, WICKED WAYS), he did some sheep tending as a young man back in Australia.  Alas, there's nothing in the film that displays any great lamb-expertise and definitely no sign of a custom he claims to have performed called daggit ta hapsheep (well, that's close to the phrase) which is castating male sheep with your teeth!

THE CARPETBAGGERS (1964)

Ultra-professional trash . . . and plenty good fun. Harold Robbins’ once shocking Hollywood roman-à-clef peaks at the early life & times of financial whiz, industrialist & movie mogul Howard Hughes, salivating over every indiscretion. Martha Hyer fails to bring the necessary insincerity to her prostitute turned-movie-star, but everyone else gives just the sort of ripe, over-indicative performance helmer Edward Dmytrk must have wanted. Robert Cummings, in a part he was born to play, is gleefully two-faced & venal as an opportunistic Hollywood agent, a veritable beacon to the film's younger stars (George Peppard, Elizabeth Ashley, Carroll Baker) who rinse any residue of ‘the Method’ right out of their system. John Michael Hayes brings the unwieldy story under control, as he had on PEYTON PLACE/’57, and producer Joseph E. Levine fakes the appearance of an all-star cast with a splashy opening title sequence. Note that Alan Ladd, the film’s one true movie star, takes second-billing for the first time. It was 50 and out for Ladd, decent & touching in what would prove to be his final role.

DOUBLE-BILL: The recent Scorsese/DiCaprio Howard Hughes bio, THE AVIATOR/’04, has real names & events, but a similar disregard for facts. And it misses this film’s spot-on chintz factor. (So much money, so little taste!) To get a feel for the real Hughes, try Max Ophuls’ CAUGHT/’49 with Robert Ryan in terrifying control-freak mode; along with Hughes’ very own directing gig, the hilariously over-ripe, closet-case Western THE OUTLAW/’43.