Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957)

Edgar G. Ulmer, how come you made such good movies and still never became the super-star you deserved to be? I can't get that into my head! A while ago I had a popular week only with reviews of Ulmer's work, one of the classics I missed then was Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, made late in his career and reminiscing of the horror movies of the forties. Shot in six days and with a superior quality to everything from script to special effects. I've always loved movies sit in a small space, short running time and with a good small ending rather than a big silly one (well, that depends of course!). So what's it about? I'll tell you...

Janet (Gloria Talbott) and George (John Agar) is about to get married and everyone is happy. She wants her guardian's blessing to get married and he, Dr Lomas (Arthur Shields) is happy to give that, but first she needs to know a secret, what happen to her deceased father! It turns out that her father was Dr. Jekyll, who killed a lot of people during one of this experiments. Janet is terrified, and soon she starts to feel the urge to kill and she gets visions during the night that she's outside, killing innocent people! How can they stop the terrible legacy she got from her father? Is it even possible, or is there something else going on... an even darker secret...

That didn't sound too exciting I guess? But it is, I promise! This is for once a fun and smart version of the Dr Jekyll story with a couple of amazing details. First of all, setting the story more or less in one house all the time gives us an excellent chamber play, manipulation of characters and three brilliant performances by Gloria Talbott, John Agar and Arthur Shields. Talbott is both weak and frail, but very self-dependent and kinda keep the big macho Agar on a short distance. She can handle stuff herself and when she finds out the shameful family secret she refuses to be with Agar. She wants to handle it herself. The dialogue is witty and smart and leads up to a clever twist that I didn't see coming at all.

On a technical level it looks good. Some of the stock footage, I think it's from James Whale's Frankenstein, is in terrible shape - a lot more blurrier and with very little detail, which during those moments takes away the atmosphere for a few seconds until the eyes got used to the change of quality. What's very impressive is the transformation scene and I have no idea how they did it. The character is in frame and is transforming in front of our eyes. This is of course intercut with reaction shots from other characters, but still - we see a character transform right in front of us, and this person is moving at the same time - so it's not one of those static shots of Lon Chaney Jr. sitting in a chair with layer upon layer of hair and make-up added to his face and limbs. This is not a spectacular make-up, but it looks damn realistic! To be honest, this film could have been called Daughter of the Wolfman also, because there's a lot of hints to werewolfs, full moons and stuff like that.

There's another fun detail, and I don't want to tell you what it is because it could ruin and spoil the movie for you - but it's a brave thing to do and I'm surprised they got away with it! They fooled me! Daughter of Dr. Jekyll is another budget-masterpiece from Edgar G. Ulmer and I recommend all of you who enjoys vintage black & white horror movies to see it and I hope it will give you as much entertainment as it gave me!

The Edgar G. Ulmer Week: Journey Beneath the Desert (1961)

Five days, five movies directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. I hope to do this again sooner or later, but I have no idea if it was appreciated or not. I guess not to many care about old semi-mainstream movies by a poverty row director nowadays. But the most important thing is that I do, and I'm gonna end this week with a highly recommended movie, Journey Beneath the Desert, one of many adaptations  of Pierre Benoît's story L'Atlantide. I haven't read the book or seen any of the other film versions, but I highly doubt they come up in same class as this one. Yeah, maybe they are more arty and pretentious - yeah, even with bigger and fancier set-pieces or better actors. But I never cared about stuff like that, because it all becomes crap if the director has no idea what he's doing. And it's very easy to see that Ulmer, taking over after the sick Frank Borzage, really knew what he was doing here.

A team of hunks crashes in the desert during a storm and when they hide in a cave they notice that a strange-dressed man is fighting for his life in nearby ravine. They help him inside the cave. Soon they discover a rare mineral, or stone, or something, and the man seem upset that they want to take the stuff with them. He leaves and come back with soldiers. Soon they are trapped in the underground city of Atlantis, sunken thousands of years ago into the desert - now ruled by a young queen. It all beings well, but our heroes aren't allow to leave the city and soon find themselves prisoners! There's just one problem, the city lies exactly where they gonna try out a nuclear bomb! They don't know exactly when, it depends on when the wind changes direction...

Journey Beneath the Desert begins like a normal European adventure movie, not far from the typical peplums of the time. But soon it's clear that Ulmer wants to do something more serious with the story than just another mindless adventure romp. Slowly the atmosphere is getting darker and nastier and the true politics of Atlantis comes forward - with slavery, fascism, capitalism. The slaves are literary working under the bourgeois, who lives luxury lives while the workers are tortured and mistreated like never before. The cult is based around one leader, a symbolic queen starts to understand that what she does is not really important - it's the men around her. I guess an American critic would see this as anti-communist, but for me it's very clearly anti-capitalistic, or at least on the left-wing of politics. I don't know about Ulmer's own stance in politics, but without speculating to much I think it's quite easy to see where he stands.

I don't want to reveal to much about the story and how the characters evolve, but for being a commercial adventure movie it sure takes a lot of unexpected character-trips. It's one of those where people die in the "wrong" order, which was a nice surprise - and the interesting theme of "manly love" between two of our main characters was also very interesting and unique. Another great thing with this movie is that the set designer was Ulmer himself and the movie looks sensational. Like Mario Bava, but more realistic and gritty. Every effect shot are either perfect or cartoonish in a very conscious way - like a fairy tale book, a comic strip.

Don't worry, it also has it's fair share of action scenes and violence and everything is very well done. But like always with the movies of Ulmer it's often the story itself that takes over the interest from us, the audience, and all the "fun" stuff comes as a welcome bonus to spice things up a little bit.

Another fine movie from Ulmer. See it or be a wimp!

The Edgar G. Ulmer Week: Hannibal (1959)

One thing is very clearly about the career of Edgar G. Ulmer: he could direct everything - and it turned out really good if it had that extra edge in the story. I can easily see why he directed Hannibal, but more to that later. This wasn't the first time Ulmer worked on a bigger budgeted costume-extravaganza. Pirates of Capri, also shot in Italy 1949, for example. When Hannibal came it was at the end of the trend in Hollywood and the only one who really cared about making similar movies was the Italians - but with smaller budgets: the so-called Peplums. Hannibal probably had a modest budget, maybe around one million dollar and Ulmer did everything to put those money on the screen.

Hannibal (Victor Mature) leads his army of the Alps and after adventures and lots of deaths the arrive in Italy. One day he and his men catches a young woman and her best friend, Sylvia (Rita Gam) and Quintilius (Terence Hill, under his real name of Mario Girotti). But Hannibal is a wise man and lets them see his powerful elephant-army and sets them free. But Sylvia falls in love with him and they keep contact, even if he's preparing to invade the city. Her uncle - and the father of Quintilius - Fabius Maximus (the great Gabriele Ferzetti) soon finds out what she's done and won't understand that her plan is to make Hannibal and the Romans come to a friendly solution. The war-starved Romans don't give a fuck about peace-talk and attacks... and tastes the first rage of Hannibal's killer elephants!

The budget might be lower than usual, but Hannibal is still one of the best historical epics from this time. It delivers the best on all fronts: melodrama, action, dialogue and cool actors. Not only does this movie have Terence Hill, Bud Spencer is in there somewhere also! What makes this movie so strong is first of the down-to-earth gritty style of Edgar G. Ulmer. Much of this can of course be explained by the low budget, but it has a very cynical view on humanity and it's far more violent and disturbing in others in the same genre. I've seen bloodier movies, but it's still pretty graphic (arrow in the mouth, cut of arm, soldiers being crushed by elephants, falling down from mountains, eaten by wolves etc) and the nasty screams mixed into the soundtrack during the battle scenes makes everything so much brutal. If you don't like nasty horse-falls maybe you should stay away from this flick, because it's horses who falls because they're trained to do but because of wires!

The second detail that makes this movie so good is the charters. Victor Mature, a quite stiff and not exactly a colourful actor, makes a perfect Hannibal. He's like a grizzled old fart, too bitter to stop himself from fighting - even if he hates what he's doing. He's not that far away from Tom Neal's character in Detour - a talented man who wants to do good, but fuck things up whether he like it or not. Most of the times when young women falls in love with older men in movies like this I laugh, but Sylvia's love for Hannibal is well-written and I can buy her fascination - a father figure. She even calls Quintilius, a man in her age, a "child" several times. She wants a father, nothing else.

Hannibal has it's fair share of faults of mistakes, everything because of the low budget and probably a quite fast shooting schedule for this form of epic project. But if you can look beyond shaky sets, stuntmen visibly holding spears meant to penetrating them, some less-than-impressive extras in the background and some really lousy night-for-day shots you'll find a damn impressive and pitch-black epic, more edgy and interesting than all others in the genre. The ending is super-black, very downbeat in that wonderful Ulmer-way and in a way very ironic. He builds up a story that ends in a way that even I couldn't expect (and forgotten after watching it several times before).

Hannibal is out on an OK-looking DVD from VCI, the best it probably have looked since it was out in cinemas - but still would need a new released with a restored print as a source.

The Edgar G. Ulmer Week: The Man from Planet X (1951)

Edgar G. Ulmer tried his hand on sci-fi as a director three times during his lifetime and the first one was the quite original The Man from Planet X, famous for probably being the first pure alien-invasion movie ever made (aliens invaded earth before this movie, but then in Superhero-serials and similar, and this must be considered on of the first of its kind). It was shot in six days on a budget on 41000 dollar, but the great sets (borrowed from 1948's Joan of Arc) and the slick directing of Ulmer makes it looks like at least 100 000 dollar more.

Journalist John Lawrence (Robert Clarke) travels to a remote Scottish island to interview doctor Elliot (Raymond Bond), a famous astronomer, about a strange planet coming closer towards earth. John is a childhood friend of the doctors daughter Enid (Margaret Field) and they are of course glad to see each other again. Elliot works together with the sinister doctor Mears (William Schallert), who's more greedy than interesting in saving mankind. One evening John and Enid finds a strange object on the moor, something that looks like a very small rocket or satellite. Shortly thereafter a spaceship lands and strange things starts to happen...

Ulmer uses his budget well and The Man from Planet X turns out to be a very intelligent and interesting early alien invasion flick, partly because it sets some of the "rules" that has been used in most other movies of the same kind afterwards, but also because it dares to be original and unpredictable. Robert Clarke is a classic Ulmer-hero, very friendly and very smart - a true gentleman without any hidden agendas or any obviously sexual interest in the heroine - it's all very romantic. Margaret Field plays a smart and witty heroine (she's the mother of Sally Field also, which I had no idea about!) but at one point she's sedated because she's in such a shock after seeing the alien creature - something that only could happen in movies from this time!

The alien, or spaceman, is an interesting character himself. With a face like an African mask, or maybe he just have a face with very little expressions, he's damn eerie and his inability to speak makes he even more scarier. With a blank face and often standing in the shadow with very little or no movements at all he's easily the weirdest spaceman from the fifties, maybe not in appearance - but his whole aura. The planet he comes from is quite interesting, the one coming closer to earth. I guess I'm not the only one realizing the planet itself is quite close resembles Melancholia, the planet in Lars Von Trier's movie with the same name. Even her the earth is on the brink of disaster, but like in more or less every sci-fi movie from the fifties everything works out okay in the end.

The Man from Planet X is another proof that you don't need that much to create a good movie. For geeks who's raised on Star Wars and 2001 this might be a very silly and stupid movie, but of course it's not. The script is water-tight - with the usual exceptions of the liberal views of scientific facts that always caused older sci-fi movies to have a certain degree of silliness - but most important, the characters and storyline works out well. You can find, if I'm not remembering it wrong, this movie released on MGM's Midnite Movies label.

The Edgar G. Ulmer Week: Detour (1945)

I can't get it out of my mind how much Detour reflects leading man Tom Neal's own life: a dirty but successful beginning until everything fucks up around him. Yeah, Edgar G. Ulmer's classic film noirs is just not a smart and original thriller, it's a pitch-black comedy. I wonder if Oliver Stone was inspired by this one when he many years later made the underrated U-Turn starring Sean Penn? Shot during four weeks - not six days as the colourful Ulmer claimed later in his life - this is clearly a movie ahead of it's with a couple of stunning performances and dialogue that would make Tarantino jealous.

Al Roberts (Tom Neal) is a good and hard-working pianist at a nightclub. He's doing well, but is still poor as few other people. His girlfriend Sue (Claudia Drake) wants to go to Hollywood to try her luck as an actress and does so. Al can't live without her and decides to quit his job and hitch-hike to LA. After days and days on the road he finally gets picked up by Charles Haskell Jr (Edmund MacDonald), a friendly "businessman". But through a weird coincidence an accident happens and Haskell Jr dies... and because of very bad luck Al has no other way than taking his identity and continue his travel to LA. But then he meets another hitcher... and shit hits the fan!

Detour was the first noir who was added to the National Film Registry, to be preserved for years to come. And I can understand why. This is a very black and downbeat thriller (but I would say it's very close to a black comedy... VERY black comedy) with it's roots in the classic film noir. The story is basically divided into two sets: in a car in front of a projection and in hotel rooms along the way. The script is sharp as hell, from the dialogue to the twists and turns. This is high class entertainment.

Tom Neal, who twenty years later shot his wife in the back of her head and spent some years in prisons - dying just shortly after his release, makes this is tour-de-force. He gives bitterness the ultimate face, and from his inability to look people in the eyes as a pianist (a very nice touch, instead he holds his eyes above everyone, or on the side) to getting involved in a story that completely destroys his dreams, his life... yeah, everything. And he's just deep inside a nice guy with a nice girlfriend and talent who wants to start a new life. If he just didn't step into that car.

The other highlight of the movie is Ann Savage as Vera, probably the most psychotic and crazy bitch ever to be portrayed in cinema history - and this way long before this kind of characters became more common. She's a living manipulative nightmare, only out to cause disaster. We're not talking about a sexy, elegant femme fatal here, we're talking about a raving psychopath. She's truly stunning in the part.

Detour is another masterpiece from Ulmer, even if I've seen so few of his movies that I can't say that there's better movies he's done. But people I trust claim so, so I have to believe them. I hate nostalgia and I'm the last person looking into the past when it comes to culture - music, movies, art - but I wish that a time like this time will come again, where storytelling is the most important thing - not budget or on which format it's shot. 

The Edgar G. Ulmer Week: Strange Illusion (1945)

Edgar G. Ulmer is one of those American masters I've been neglecting for my whole adult life, and I need to change this from now on. Famous for his cheapie thrillers, a hired gun for the studios when they needed something quickly done. He directed around 50 movies since 1930, but before that he worked as a set designer and art director for silent movies classics as Der Golem, Siegfried and Metropolis. So he came from the school of the best of the best. After scoring a big hit with The Black Cat in 1934 he quickly found himself in demand, but maybe faster than anyone else he dived into the world of poverty row thrillers and imaginative exploitation movies. This might have stopped him from being really big, but it also gave him an emotional freedom that's very visible in Strange Illusion.

Jimmy Lydon plays Paul Cartwright, an excellent student and smart young man who still is in pain over his dear fathers violent death. He spends a lot of time with doc (Regis Toomey), the family doctor - and he's almost like father figure for Paul. When he comes home after being away for studies - and a nice fishing trip with doc - he founds out that his mother is dating a new man, the charming Brett Curtis (Warren William). But Paul is having dreams, dreams that he thinks is foretelling the future - and that dream says his mother is in danger. Soon he starts to suspect that Brett is a womanizer, a murdered - just out to marry and kill his mother and now Paul need to stop this from happen...

Strange Illusion is a simple and smart thriller, and excellent choice if you want to see an effective cheapie that proofs that budget is nothing compared to talent. The movie starts of atmospherically with a dream sequence, maybe inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound from the same year, that sets the tone for the whole movie - paranoia, the idea that you can't trust no one. I have no idea if that is true, but there's a feeling that the interpretation of dreams is something that interested Ulmer in real life. This is not a silly sequence, but a dark and eerie one. And it feels smart. Like a lot of these movies the story is contained inside rooms, cheap sets with the inclusion of some stock footage to show the outside. Much like John Brahm's The Undying Monster (1942 - highly recommended werewolf movie) this works almost for the better, because we're trapped with the characters in very claustrophobic storyline.

In a movie where the actors are the most important pieces, except the script, Strange Illusion delivers even on that front. Jimmy Lydon, only 22 years old at the time, carries a lot of the movie on his own shoulders - but has an excellent opponent in the elder veteran playing the baddie, the awesome Warren Willam. He died a few years after this movie, but mostly known during his golden years for playing evil bastards, false lovers and corrupt officials - and he's both handsome and talented enough to make this work. Like Vincent Price he has a remarkable voice, which was lucky for him after coming from the silent movie era and made the transition to talkies very well. Like many others who played baddies he was a silent and serious man, devoted to his wife, and took his acting job very seriously. I'm missing that kind of actors.

Strange Illusion was a good start for me (I've seen Ulmer's Hannibal since earlier) and it gave me even more inspiration to check out the rest of his career. This movie is easy and cheap to find, so if you're interested in film noir or just an obscure forties thriller this is the movie for you.

Edgar G. Ulmer week at Ninja Dixon!

Yes, finally something you all been waiting for! ;)

Edgar G. Ulmer was one of the most interesting and intelligent "b-movie" directors in Hollywood and worked in every genre from horror and sci-fi to melodrama and film noir. The stories might seem ordinary at a first glance, but is often filled with Ulmer's odd ideas, interesting characters and unique twists. A very quirky filmmaker who deserves even more respect than he's gotten over the years.

From Monday to Friday, one Ulmer-movie each day! There will be other reviews also, of course - I'm hyper-active right now - but Edgar G. Ulmer will be MY man the whole week! I encourage you who have blogs to watch and write about his work and you other to take some time watch that film noir thriller who's been standing in your shelf for such a long time - it might be Ulmer himself!

Looking forward to comments and analyzes of his work - and please, if you decided to write something yourself on your blog, please let me know here and I will link to your review!

/Fred