Back to the Slaughterhouse

Up next are two* more Tod Slaughter movies from the Night Screams subset of the Mill Creek box set.*

Plus, as a bonus, we review a feature film* of his that hadn't been seen for decades, until it resurfaced last year.

(*Well, sort of -- on all counts! -- see below.)

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The Ticket of Leave Man (1937)

Grade: B-

Traffic in human depravity though he may, there's something oddly comforting about knowing you're about to watch a Tod Slaughter film. Partly it's the familiarity of seeing the same faces over and over again, until they blend together in a pleasantly delirious haze, wherein names become less important than structural functions.

So it doesn't matter that Marjorie Taylor is called "May Edwards" in this particular film, because it's just another instantiation of her archetypical role as "the woman Tod Slaughter wants to sleep with, thereby making her very uncomfortable".

(Someone should start a Tumblr called "Tod Slaughter making women very uncomfortable.")

This film (The Ticket of Leave Man) and the next (The Face at the Window) blend together even more than most, since they both involve a lot of the same plot points. There's a mysterious criminal named for a dangerous animal, who hides in plain sight by masquerading as an affluent and upstanding citizen. There's a beautiful woman whose charms attract the unwanted attention of said murderer.

And there's an honest young man (John Edwards) employed at a bank -- and in love with said young woman -- who runs afoul of the law when he's falsely accused of one or more heinous crimes.

In this case, the honest young man even gets thrown in prison, though he's paroled before too terribly long. This makes him the titular "ticket of leave man", a phrase totally unfamiliar to us before this film.

To help us differentiate it from other Slaughter films, The Ticket of Leave Man has some striking secondary characters, like this creepy, cigar-smoking child-man...

...or this unambiguously anti-Semitic caricature:

We're hardly the sort to grasp at straws in the name of self-righteousness, but it's not as if there's a scintilla of doubt when it comes to Frank Cochran's portrayal of counterfeiter Melter Moss, or what stereotype it's meant to evoke. Given that he only had three IMDb credits -- one of them for the role of "Ho Tang", we kid you not -- we're guessing Cochran may have been mainly a stage actor, who apparently specialized in ethnoculturally insensitive roles.

The Ticket of Leave Man is a close cousin to It's Never Too Late to Mend, and probably a notch better than that preachier effort. And we get Slaughter with and without mustache, which is always a plus. But we're docking a few points for Melter Moss: OK, we don't know from 1930s Britain, but we want they should do better than that, no?

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The Face at the Window (1939)

Grade: C-

So, when we pulled out Disc 46 of our 250-movie box set to watch The Face at the Window, we were greeted by this:

And this:

Yes, it seems that instead of giving us Disc 46 of the Horror Collection, Mill Creek accidentally gave us Disc 46 of the Western Legends Movie Pack. Oh, well.

Fortunately, all four films on Disc 46 are available for viewing on YouTube and other sites -- which means that, for our next few posts, the screenshots you see won't be from the Mill Creek box. Unfortunately our downloaded source for The Face at the Window is by far the worst of the four, yielding blurry, artifacted results like this:

It was still watchable (barely), but the poor video quality probably detracted from our enjoyment of The Face at the Window -- though, don't get us wrong, we're grateful to the uploader nonetheless. 

Another demerit is the supernatural element in this tale, first hinted at in the opening text crawl:

Then, later, we get a bunch of flasks and beakers, and you know what that means. That's right: science.

Somehow, the inclusion of lycanthropy (sort of) and galvanism dampens the fun -- perhaps because the necessary pseudo-scientific handwaving undermines the classical purity, if you will, of Slaughter's Grand Guignol act.

Or then again, maybe it's that the protagonists too often act like blithering idiots, repeatedly contriving to make the stupidest possible choice in order to serve the needs of the plot? That made it hard to care much about their fates.

But hey, at least we have another entry for our Tumblr.

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King of the Underworld (1952)

Grade: C+

This "movie" is actually an edited compilation of the first three episodes of a British TV series, Inspector Morley Investigates -- aka Inspector Morley (Late of Scotland Yard) Investigates, depending on whom you ask.

However, Inspector Morley was never actually broadcast in Britain: though a full run of 13 episodes was wrapped, the producers were apparently unable to sell the show to the BBC.

Instead, they sold it to the American market -- where it was apparently broadcast for at least one run -- but also took six of the episodes they'd filmed and combined them into two features, King of the Underworld and Murder at Scotland Yard, which were shown in the U.K. (Confused yet?)

The latter feature, and the majority of the episodes, remain lost as of this writing -- but may yet lurk in someone's vault or collection.

You can find more information about the series, including the three other surviving episodes, here. In any event it was a very pleasant surprise when King of the Underworld was unexpectedly shown last year on a British TV station, and we're very grateful to the colleague who was kind enough to provide us with a DVD of the broadcast.

Slaughter plays Terence Reilly, an irrepressibly evil criminal mastermind, and it's nice to see that age hasn't robbed him of his panache or physical presence. Though Inspector Morley solves a fresh case in each episode, some aspect of the crime will inevitably reveal Reilly's sinister fingerprints.

And unlike Slaughter's other characters, Reilly doesn't generally let his wang overrule his brain -- making him far more dangerous.

Opposing Reilly's schemes are Inspector John Morley (Patrick Barr), naturally, as well as his crackerjack assistant Eileen Trotter (Tucker McGuire). Quick-witted and sharp-tongued, Eileen bears no small resemblance to Harriet Sansom Harris (best known for her recurring role on Frasier as Machiavellian agent Bebe Glazer).

In actuality, King of the Underworld doesn't "read" as a feature film at all. The edits (and voiceover narration) that combine the three episodes aren't crude, but certainly aren't seamless, and even contemporary audiences unaware of the film's origins could hardly have been fooled. Still, Slaughter's presence -- he was in every episode of Inspector Morley -- provides enough continuity to forge a reasonably plausible Holmes vs. Moriarty storyline.

That said, the quality of the writing isn't great, and leans too heavily on a handful of gimmicks -- especially disguises -- whose plausibility stretches thin with reuse. Also, Morley himself isn't really as clever as he ought to be, sometimes letting slip information that can only harm him or his colleagues: after Eileen successfully tricks Reilly, why on earth would the Inspector then reveal her identity to him? What purpose does it serve, except perhaps to gloat?

We've seen the other, later episodes of Inspector Morley Investigates that survive, and we're sorry to say that in those, Eileen is woefully underused and dumbed-down. Here, though, she's a real firecracker. Independent-minded, and (ahem) oddly sexy, she's arguably a better foil to Slaughter than Morley himself. Certainly, she's almost as responsible for solving their cases as Morley is.

So naturally, the writers ensure that Eileen eventually gets into deep trouble and has to be rescued. Così fan tutte.

Tod Slaughter fans will be this film's main audience, but Tucker McGuire's fun portrayal means there are two good reasons to seek out King of the Underworld. Otherwise it's largely a standard affair and a period piece -- but as fresh documentation of a great actor's career, it's like rediscovering a home movie you'd forgotten about.

Don't watch these, Prince

We like Mill Creek. Really, we do. But sometimes they put out a print that's just so damaged, hacked up, worn to bits, or umpteenth-generation that we have to warn our loyal readers to steer clear, because even the most indulgent and imaginative viewer can't compensate for what's been lost. And crucially, there are better copies of these movies out there -- in one case, you can get a free copy legally! -- so it clearly didn't have to be this way.

But verily, the sad hand of cheap-ass commerce has left its fingerprints all over this next pair. So if the question is "Should I watch the Mill Creek versions of these movies?", the answer is most assuredly "I don't think so."

(But maybe it'd help to have some Dunk-a-roos to snack on. Or Hulkaroos for that matter, if you're feeling especially Minnesotan.)

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The Ape Man (1943)

Objective Grade: D
Hairy Hungarian Bonus: C+
Poor Print Penalty: F



Inevitably there's a degree of pathos associated with seeing Béla Lugosi wasting his talents in a piece of silly dreck like The Ape Man. But unlike some of his later roles, the charismatic Hungarian still has enough physical presence to pull this one off -- which, paradoxically enough, makes it easier to laugh at the whole thing.



In fact, the makers of The Ape Man encourage us to laugh right from the start, and we're not merely talking about anachronistic double-entendres like "After today, you'll be shooting that one-eyed monster of yours for Uncle Sam." Maybe they wanted to hedge their bets, aware that the premise of The Ape Man was so risible, and Béla's makeup so ridiculous, that even schoolchildren might find the whole thing laughable.



What seals the deal: from the very beginning of the film, an enigmatic man lurks in almost every scene -- sometimes as an onlooker, sometimes as a participant. By the time we find out who this goofy, creepy, Ryan Stiles-esque figure is, it signifies that The Ape Man has, once and for all, abandoned all pretense of sincerity. (Meta was by no means an invention of the late 1990s, folks.)



We're assuming you don't need us to tell you that Béla's a scientist on the brink of insanity, or that a spunky female reporter is one of the protagonists, or that there's a gorilla in the basement. Such things, you understand, are de rigueur.



Why you shouldn't watch this print:
While the picture on this copy isn't too bad, the audio is positively, absolutely atrocious. It's terribly muffled, but even if you try to compensate with EQ, what's left is far too damaged to work with. As a result, much of the dialogue is incomprehensible, and we were lucky to understand 50% of what was said, even after multiple replays.



What to watch instead:
Look no further than the wonderful Archive.org, which has a downloadable copy of The Ape Man with much, much better sound quality.

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The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971)

Grade: D+
Markdown for the Mangling of Motivation (and Milk): F

Poor Lord Alan Cunningham (Anthony Steffen). He's nobility, he's filthy rich and he's handsome, but he just can't get over his late wife Evelyn. Part of the problem is that he has an odd approach to grieving: whenever he sees a certain kind of redhead, he has to have her...



...and then he has to kill her.

The title of this movie tells us that things will get even messier in the Evelyn department, and indeed they do. What's less clear is whether any of it makes any sense, and on second viewing the whole thing seems all the more creaky and indulgent (bordering on incoherent).

To distract us from the silliness of the narrative, we get an array of visual stimuli including not-so-sexy dancers, groovy hippie bands, and fleet foxes. But unlike some other films (e.g. Kiss Me Kill Me), The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave doesn't have enough style (or eye candy) to engross the viewer on that basis alone.

But does the Mill Creek copy give us sufficient basis to form a judgment? Read on for the answer.

Why you shouldn't watch this print:

OK, the image is perennially blurry and/or washed-out, and some of the nighttime scenes are tough to make out. That's to be expected, and if you can't tolerate VHS quality, you have no business buying Mill Creek boxsets. But a good 15-20 minutes have been edited out of this copy, mostly (we assume) to cut out nudity. 

However, the excised material wasn't just T&A, but also included crucial dialogue that explains Alan's murderous behavior, as well a key scene involving a missing glass of milk (in the edited version they allude to this, with no context whatsoever). With it intact, the film makes one hell of a lot more sense.

What to watch instead:

We're not going to link to it, but an unedited, full-length, widescreen copy of The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave is on YouTube. It's in Italian, but has an option for English-language subtitles, and looks light-years better than the Mill Creek copy, especially in the darker scenes. It made us say things like "Colors!" and "Contrast!", which are words we don't get to say much under the Umbrellahead umbrella.

Oddly, this post on IMDb made us expect an alternate ending, but either that person's imagining things or it's simply not in this version, because the ending was the same as the Mill Creek copy.

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As a side note, we've finally caught up with our backlog of reviews, which dated back to 2011 (!) when we resumed posting earlier this month.  We're planning to review one more movie we watched quite recently (a non-Mill Creek affair that mostly seems to have been forgotten by the Internet), and we'll also do a brief recap of the 50 Horror Classics subset that spanned from Carnival of Souls to Phantom from 10,000 Leagues.

One for the three of Price

If you know who said "Creatures crawl in search of blood / To terrorize your neighborhood!", you'll want to stick around for this entry.

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The Bat (1959)

Grade: B-



Stagy-but-serviceable chiller starring Agnes Moorehead as a mystery writer who rents an old mansion, only to end up in the center of a tangled web of murder, money, and Microchiroptera.



The chief villain is the titular Bat, a serial killer whose M.O. of choice is ripping people's throats out with steel claws. Edgy stuff for a mainstream movie in 1959, but it's rendered toothless by the fact that even the film's onscreen killings are totally devoid of blood. When a character has her throat slashed, her neck and dress remain as pristine as the driven snow.



In his role as the genially sinister doctor who lives nearby, Price displays his usual fey elegance, though a couple scenes subtly highlight his imposing stature.



But the real star here is Moorehead, whose sharp-tongued and sharp-witted performance helps to energize material that, truth be told, is roughly comparable to an above-average episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents: still pretty good, but a bit anemic at key moments.

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The House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Grade: C



Moderately entertaining potboiler about five people who are selected, seemingly at random, to be locked in for a night with a millionaire (and his wife) in the "haunted" mansion he's renting. Whoever survives until morning gets 10 grand, which is equivalent to over $80k in 2013 dollars.



This should be good, schlocky fun, and to some degree it is. But several of the characters are miscast or otherwise unappealing, especially Elisha Cook Jr.'s one-note performance as the perpetually plastered homeowner, Watson Pritchard (though in fairness, who could do a damn thing with THAT role?).



More damagingly, the plot has holes you could drive a truck through, and on our second viewing that became all too apparent. (How did the rope move? How could either Mr. or Mrs. Loren invite Dr. Trent without arousing the other's suspicion?)



Still, you can't go wrong with Vincent Price as the ghoulishly genteel millionaire, whose relationship with his wife is more poisonous than a bottle of Vampire Bat™ Sleeping Pills.



We particularly enjoyed the dreamy, unfocused look he gets in his eyes while imagining the different ways in which he and his wife might off one another.

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The Last Man on Earth (1964)

Grade: D+



This ambitious adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend has its heart in the right place (so to speak), but winds up being a dreadfully draggy, dreary affair. It'd seem to have everything one could want: a relentlessly grim worldview; long, bleak stretches without dialogue or narration; and an adaption of the book that, we're told, is far more faithful than other versions of the Matheson story.

Plus, of course, it has Vincent Price as our fearless vampire killer, facing an endless stream of undead foes.



And these are things that work well in other movies, but somehow, it never gels here.

Maybe the problem is the film's pacing, or maybe Price really was miscast (as Matheson apparently believed). He doesn't really seem like a man possessed with righteous fire, but more like a vaguely dandyish older gentleman for whom the marauding vampire-zombies are an intrusion on his OCD rituals and evening libations.



In any event, we suspect The Last Man on Earth is one of those films where the idea of having seen it, or (at least) the idea that it exists, is preferable to actually watching it.  It's a bit like having children, or at least when your neighbors have children.



Or like when your friend recounts a funny scene from a movie, and you think to yourself "Jeepers, I've gotta see that one, it's sure to be a laff riot!" But when you do, no laughs ensue, and you are blue.

Certain things, after all is said and done, aren't much fun.