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.

Passion killer, you're too much

By no means is this next pair of reviews our first foray into the Night Screams (sing it, Neil!) subset of the 250-pack. We've covered six of those films so far, ranging from the Sapphic musings of Kiss Me, Kill Me to the bottomless battles of Killers of the Sea (as opposed to the topless titillations of Devil Monster, with which we sometimes confuse it).

But these two films share another trait besides being part of Night Screams, since they both prominently feature pretty ladies gettin' photographed (and then offed -- not much of a spoiler, that). And yet, both are also dominated by a charismatic male actor whom we found more memorable than any of the XXs on display.

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Bloody Pit of Horror (1966)

Grade: D+

Silly robes aside, there's a solid case to be made that Mickey Hargitay was actually the most attractive member of his family. We've never thought Jayne Mansfield was much of a looker, and Mariska clearly takes after her; meanwhile, though we knew Mickey was jacked, we didn't realize how pretty he was.

Somehow a mental image of one of those circus strongmen with a big mustache crept into the "Mickey Hargitay" filing drawer of our brains, but he's not Karnov- or Zangief-esque at all; if anything he looks and moves more like a dancer. His screen presence is a bit off-kilter, but no less palpable.

However, Mickey Hargitay certainly wasn't the best actor in his family -- his daughter deserves that title (even if these days SVU has reduced her to trotting out rote expressions of pained sympathy and righteous indignation, in whatever sequence is necessary to fill that episode's quota).

He gives Bloody Pit of Horror his best shot, but -- like a washed-up actor doing porn to make money -- his efforts feel out of place and, at times, faintly embarrassing.

And of course, Bloody Pit of Horror basically is porn -- torture porn, to be precise, that's allegedly adapted from the writings of de Sade. Oh, there's a framing story about a group of models and photographers who foolishly blunder upon a haunted castle and ignore numerous warning signs telling them to get the hell out.

With their blasé attitude and loose morals, they ultimately offend Hargitay -- who (now that we think about it) plays a washed-up actor, so there you go -- and thereby seal their fate. Throw in a medieval legend about the "Crimson Executioner", an obsession with bodily purity, and a handful of underlings who all wear striped shirts for some reason, and you've got a movie.

But, to vaguely evoke that famous line from 1984, the torture is the point of Bloody Pit of Horror -- not a means to an end, but an end in itself. And, well, if you're into seeing women tormented to the tune of looping Italian lounge music, then we suppose this here is your jam. It's got skewerings, slashings, burnings, an iron maiden, death by crossbow, and an elaborate setpiece involving a web of wires and the goofiest-looking spider this side of Martha's Orphanage.

As demonstrated by the persistence of shows like SVU and Criminal Minds (not to mention the recent U.S. election), virulent sexual sadism is rather fashionable these days. But while Bloody Pit of Horror is too distasteful to be laughed off, the years have dulled its edge, and -- despite some impressive sets and a fairly attractive cast -- ultimately it left us bored and disinterested.

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City of Missing Girls (1941)

Grade: C+

This crisp little effort from Poverty Row manages to be a film about prostitution that never actually uses the word, nor any of its synonyms. But that's clearly the subtext -- here couched in euphemisms about "out-of-town jobs" to which the titular girls are assigned, never to return.

Swooping in to save the day is James Horton, an ambitious young A.D.A. (played by John Archer, whom we recently saw in Bowery at Midnight, and rather reminds us of Robert Sean Leonard in this appearance).

He's flanked by a philosophical old police captain (H.B. Warner) and -- could there be any doubt? -- a young, spunky female reporter, Nora Page (Astrid Allwyn). She's good-naturedly amoral in her search for front-page news, though like all spunky female reporters, she eventually sees the error of her ways.

She's also in for a grim discovery, as her father is an investor in the "Crescent School of Fine Arts" -- a talent agency that's more or less a front for the film's sex trafficking operations. So the deeper she digs, the closer she unwittingly gets to dear old Dad.

(Don't you see? This is what always happens to -- ugh -- career women. Hence why no spunky female reporter's career outlives the runtime of the film she's in, not to mention the conspicuous lack of middle-aged spunky female reporters in these movies.)

One thing that's refreshing about City of Missing Girls is the unexpected civility of the cast. Officers of the law and criminals have actual conversations, and treat each other with a degree of respect, even when hinting at the gravest of threats. And this paradoxically makes the villain King Peterson (Philip Van Zandt) seem more menacing, since like a big dog that doesn't bark, he has no need to boast to prove his power.

If you enjoy the fashionable absurdities of past decades (as opposed to the fashionable inhumanity of the present era), then City of Missing Girls offers a pleasant smorgasbord of preposterous peacockery. We get silly hats (obligatory in any film with a SFR), silly outfits, and silly dances galore.

But the real star is H.B. Warner, who's the kind of old fella we'd all love to have in our corner, and steals every scene he's in. (We suppose that's no surprise coming from a guy famous for his portrayal of Jesus -- which he pulled off the age of fifty-two!)

As Captain McVeigh, he's warm, witty, patient, sharp as a tack -- and astonishingly spry when the moment calls for it.

By our lights, McVeigh is the film's real protagonist. He's the first onscreen and last to leave, and gets most of the best lines:

Horton: "If you were a gangster and you wanted to frame somebody --"
McVeigh: "Yeah, well, I'm not a gangster, and I don't want to frame anybody. I want to go to sleep!"
Horton: "Mac, this is important!"
McVeigh: "All right, I am a gangster, I do want to frame somebody, and I don't want to go to sleep."
Horton: "All right, now who would you get to take a picture like this?"
McVeigh: "A photographer."

At heart City of Missing Girls is a formula piece, with a plot whose twists and turns hardly qualify as such. But it's still an enjoyable one, and if you don't agree, may H.B. Warner haunt you with his Duck Face of Disappointment.