Post by Doghouse6 on Mar 26, 2017 1:48:24 GMT
I wonder if it's remarkable or simply elementary (my dear salzmank) what comfortable companions mystery and comedy make: the Thin Mans (and imitators); the Hildegard Withers series; the Perry Masons; Bulldog Drummonds; Charlie Chans; the Margaret Rutherford Miss Marples; stand-alones such as those occasionally done by the likes of Bob Hope and Gracie Allen. And the genre lends itself especially well to B-level programmers where contract players can strut their melodramatic stuff as supporting-cast suspects or score normally-unattainted top billing as clever sleuths.
The Black Camel (1931)/Charlie Chan In Monte Carlo (1937) - Respectively, the earliest surviving and last-completed of the Warner Oland Chans are two of the best. Camel benefits from both extensive location work in and around Honolulu and its predating of the more standardized formula to which subsequent entries soon conformed. And in each, Chan, in addition to receiving overeager and often bungling "assistance" (from Kashimo in Camel; number one son Lee in Monte Carlo), is partnered by a "co-sleuth" with whom Oland has great onscreen chemistry: alternately affable and intense Bela Lugosi (Camel) and the ever-versatile Harold Huber (Monte Carlo). Together, they serve as satisfying bookends to the extant Oland/Chan canon (four of the fifteen he did remain lost).
The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1939)/Mr. and Mrs. North (1942) - Gracie Allen did these two early in George Burns' 26-year hiatus from the big screen, and if you love Gracie, that's all the reason you need to enjoy them. In the first, she's joined by Warren William making a return appearance as Philo Vance five years after his one-off in The Dragon Murder Case. In the second, William Post, Jr. ("Franz Tobel" in Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon) adds little as the long-suffering Mr. North, but the cast is rounded out by a galaxy of notable reliables: Paul Kelly, Rose Hobart, Virginia Grey, Tom Conway, Felix Bressart, Porter Hall, Millard Mitchell, Jerome Cowan, Henry O'Neill. Fortunio Bonanova and even Keye Luke. Look for Gracie's earlier version of Nancy Walker's Murder By Death "silent scream" gag, but with an added payoff.
Eyes In the Night (1942)/The Hidden Eye (1945) - Regrettably, Edward Arnold did only these two as the resourceful, formidable and blind investigator Duncan MacNeil. They're brisk, snappy and glossily mounted in MGM style. It's always a pleasure to witness Arnold displaying his likeable side, and the genial "Mac" is a not-to-be-trifled-with force who lets nothing get him down and no one stand in his way.
The Ghost Breakers (1940) gets my vote as the better of Bob Hope's two whudunit teamings with Paulette Goddard: chock full of atmospheric and first-rate production values; an exotic setting; a strong supporting cast (Paul Lukas, Anthony Quinn, Richard Carlson, Paul Fix, Willie Best, Pedro de Cordoba, Lloyd Corrigan). And Hope's one-liners are more neatly integrated into character and situation (although '39's The Cat and the Canary features this irresistible exchange: GODDARD: "Aren't you afraid of big, empty houses?" - HOPE: "Not me; I used to be in Vaudeville").
5 Card Stud (1968) - Westerns aren't normally my thing, but this moody combo of the genre with that of murder mystery, aided by Maurice Jarre's unsettlingly-discordant, minor-key score and a solid if sometimes-unconventional cast (Dean Martin, Robert Mitchum, Roddy McDowall, Inger Stevens, Yaphet Kotto, John Anderson, Denver Pyle, Whit Bissell, Ted de Corsia), is nicely effective even if the mystery is pretty much no mystery from the get-go. That's long-haired brunette Katherine Justice as the "good girl," who had immediately before appeared as Gene Barry's red-headed accomplice in the 1968 Columbo pilot film, Prescription: Murder, upon whom the normally diffident detective bears down so aggressively and unmercifully.
The Black Camel (1931)/Charlie Chan In Monte Carlo (1937) - Respectively, the earliest surviving and last-completed of the Warner Oland Chans are two of the best. Camel benefits from both extensive location work in and around Honolulu and its predating of the more standardized formula to which subsequent entries soon conformed. And in each, Chan, in addition to receiving overeager and often bungling "assistance" (from Kashimo in Camel; number one son Lee in Monte Carlo), is partnered by a "co-sleuth" with whom Oland has great onscreen chemistry: alternately affable and intense Bela Lugosi (Camel) and the ever-versatile Harold Huber (Monte Carlo). Together, they serve as satisfying bookends to the extant Oland/Chan canon (four of the fifteen he did remain lost).
The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1939)/Mr. and Mrs. North (1942) - Gracie Allen did these two early in George Burns' 26-year hiatus from the big screen, and if you love Gracie, that's all the reason you need to enjoy them. In the first, she's joined by Warren William making a return appearance as Philo Vance five years after his one-off in The Dragon Murder Case. In the second, William Post, Jr. ("Franz Tobel" in Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon) adds little as the long-suffering Mr. North, but the cast is rounded out by a galaxy of notable reliables: Paul Kelly, Rose Hobart, Virginia Grey, Tom Conway, Felix Bressart, Porter Hall, Millard Mitchell, Jerome Cowan, Henry O'Neill. Fortunio Bonanova and even Keye Luke. Look for Gracie's earlier version of Nancy Walker's Murder By Death "silent scream" gag, but with an added payoff.
Eyes In the Night (1942)/The Hidden Eye (1945) - Regrettably, Edward Arnold did only these two as the resourceful, formidable and blind investigator Duncan MacNeil. They're brisk, snappy and glossily mounted in MGM style. It's always a pleasure to witness Arnold displaying his likeable side, and the genial "Mac" is a not-to-be-trifled-with force who lets nothing get him down and no one stand in his way.
The Ghost Breakers (1940) gets my vote as the better of Bob Hope's two whudunit teamings with Paulette Goddard: chock full of atmospheric and first-rate production values; an exotic setting; a strong supporting cast (Paul Lukas, Anthony Quinn, Richard Carlson, Paul Fix, Willie Best, Pedro de Cordoba, Lloyd Corrigan). And Hope's one-liners are more neatly integrated into character and situation (although '39's The Cat and the Canary features this irresistible exchange: GODDARD: "Aren't you afraid of big, empty houses?" - HOPE: "Not me; I used to be in Vaudeville").
5 Card Stud (1968) - Westerns aren't normally my thing, but this moody combo of the genre with that of murder mystery, aided by Maurice Jarre's unsettlingly-discordant, minor-key score and a solid if sometimes-unconventional cast (Dean Martin, Robert Mitchum, Roddy McDowall, Inger Stevens, Yaphet Kotto, John Anderson, Denver Pyle, Whit Bissell, Ted de Corsia), is nicely effective even if the mystery is pretty much no mystery from the get-go. That's long-haired brunette Katherine Justice as the "good girl," who had immediately before appeared as Gene Barry's red-headed accomplice in the 1968 Columbo pilot film, Prescription: Murder, upon whom the normally diffident detective bears down so aggressively and unmercifully.