I’m on the road this week on my way to Austin, Texas. Since I neglected to bring anything to read with me, I thought I’d check out youtube and pore through some old videos. I happened to type in Alan Ladd (one of my favorite actors) and discovered that some kind soul has uploaded an entire copy of his 1949 version of The Great Gatsby, directed by Elliott Nugent. It’s a film I’ve wanted to see ever since I first read the book but it’s been almost impossible to find. I used to scour used video stores for a copy on VHS, with no luck.

This film as far as I know has never been released on DVD and rarely shows up on TV. You can watch the movie yourself (it’s broken up into ten easy-to-view portions). The only bugaboo is that it has Portuguese subtitles, but I found myself fascinated reading them. It was like reading and watching The Great Gatsby at the same time, although with a pronounced Portuguese accent.

You can find the videos here. Gatsby.  I hope the fellow who posted them won’t mind my showcasing a few screen caps here to illustrate my comments about it.

This 1949 version stars Alan Ladd in the title role, Betty Field (badly miscast) as Daisy Buchanan, Macdonald Carey as a stiff Nick Carraway, a tough Barry Sullivan as Tom Buchanan and the always amazing Ruth Hussey as Jordan Baker. Elisha Cook, Jr. (who played the “gunsel” in The Maltese Falcon with such poignant angst) has a bit part. Ed Begley, Sr. plays Myron Lupus (Meyer Wolfsheim, the Arnold Rothstein character.)

The big surprise here is Shelley Winters as Myrtle Wilson. She looks sexier than in any film I’ve seen her in and she gives a knockout performance as the girl who lives above the gas station. Shelley Winters has to be the most underrated actress in Hollywood history.

Die-hard fans of the novel will be disappointed in this 40s adaptation. The producers must have felt that the basic story was not dramatic enough so they jazzed up the script with a lot of bootlegging lingo, changed the time period (moving it closer to the Crash of 29) and added fancy film noir flashbacks. It has a lot in common actually with Orson Welles’s Lady from Shanghai, released a year earlier, right down to the wise old mogul lounging on his yacht. Nevertheless it is light years better than the ghastly 70s Necco-Wafer-color version starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. This 1949 take has lavish expressionistic sets and dark sinister lighting. Plus it does a smash-up job of emphasizing the evil eyeglasses of Dr. Eckleburg.

And it has Alan Ladd in a bathing suit. What more can you ask for?

There is a scene at the end when Gatsby is shot that is like something out of a film by Jean Renoir. The ecstasy in Gatsby’s face as he is killed is almost erotic.

The earliest version from 1926, starring Warner Baxter, is apparently lost (although a trailer luckily exists). Hopefully one day it will turn up in a vault in some ex-movie mogul’s mansion. I hear that Baz Luhrmann is remaking The Great Gatsby. I hope he sticks closer to the novel than these other efforts. Fitzgerald knew what he was doing. It’s a tale as timeless as the Jazz Age itself and does not need any “improving”.

[NOTE: On hiatus in New York, researching a new project. Therefore, for the time being, I am resurrecting another older piece, this one about The Lodger, which seems very apt now since the new movie version by David Ondaatje, starring Simon Baker and Hope Davis, below, opens today.]

Ladykiller: The Story of The Lodger

A tall dark stranger. Loads of London fog. A coquettish showgirl. The back streets of Whitechapel. A debonair inspector. And Jack the Ripper. These are the ingredients that have made Marie Belloc Lowndes’ novel The Lodger such an eternal favorite.

First published in McClure’s magazine in 1911, the mystery, soon issued in book form in 1913, cleverly preyed on the public’s fascination with the Ripper case, which remained unsolved (and still is, despite what Patricia Cornwell might want us to think), and played off the paranoia and hysteria that arise when a ruthless serial killer is on the loose. Lowndes was the sister of the author Hilaire Belloc. And while she may not have had his subtle flair for literature, she had the equally valuable common touch. Her book has been in print since it was first published. In fact, four films have been made based on her novel.

Recently I’ve been on something of a Lodger kick. While researching the wonderful, but now nearly forgotten, actor Laird Cregar, I discovered that the Fox film, The Lodger, was finally out on DVD and available on NetFlix. I leapt at the chance to view it. Starring some of my favorite Hollywood stars, including Merle Oberon, as the disarmingly beautiful showgirl, and George Sanders, as the devastatingly debonair detective, Fox’s 1944 version of the Lodger stands out as arguably the best in the series. But it is Laird Cregar’s performance that makes the film so worth watching. Physically a cross between Vincent Price (particularly his slightly whispered, gentleman’s voice) and Raymond Burr (especially Burr’s soulful eyes and bulk), Cregar is in a league of his own.

Breathing new life into the stereotype of Ripper as a madman, Cregar imbues his character with uncanny pathos and cunning. While it is evident from the beginning of the film that he is in fact the killer, one is drawn to him, just as Merle Oberon is, despite his ungainly physique (Cregar was over 300 pounds at this point), and bizarre personality.

Cregar starts off slow but gradually reveals his character in flashes of brilliance. There’s one scene in particular in which Cregar shows Oberon a small painting of his “brother.” It’s a self-portrait that the artist made, showing a devilishly handsome young man (who looks nothing like Cregar at all). Cregar goes off on a mad monologue about how beautiful his “brother” was, oozing a disconcertingly incestuous and homoerotic obsessiveness that isn’t really in the script. It’s all in the way Cregar delivers the lines — and in his eyes. It is a chilling scene that transports this film from being a typical Hollywood Gothic thriller into a realm of Poe-like surrealism that transcends the genre. And which also makes it uniquely ahead of its time. Blaming the cause of a serial killer’s rage against women on his repressed homosexual urges had not yet become a tired Hollywood cliche.

The same can also be said of the first two Lodger films that starred the great English musical star Ivor Novello. I could go on at length about the appeal of this amazing persona.

Little known today in America, Novello was on a par with Noel Coward in England, writing musicals, starring in films, penning unforgettable songs, producing elegant theatrical spectaculars. He even found the time to write the screenplay for the original Tarzan, The Ape Man film (starring Johnny Weissmuller)! And not only that, he was devastatingly handsome. In the 1920s, Ivor Novello was one of the most instantly recognizable faces in the world.

The first Lodger film was a stylish silent movie directed by none other than Alfred Hitchcock, in 1926. It can be seen as one of his first masterpieces. And the first in a long line of thrillers. Hitchcock had had another success with Novello in the marvelous silent Downhill. Unfortunately, because of Novello’s popularity, the Lodger story was changed, making Novello merely a suspect in the Ripper case, rather than the actual killer himself. This worked well for Hitchcock’s purposes, as he was a master at creating suspense out of ordinary daily experiences. But the story lacked some punch. Today it is best known for its striking cinematography and Novello’s riveting performance.

In 1932, Novello remade The Lodger, also starring himself. But this time he made it as a talkie. It is similar to the Hitchcock version, but lacks the ingenuity and mise-en-scene that Hitchcock first gave it. Still, it is worth watching since it is one of the few films in which we can hear Novello actually talk. And even without Hitchcock, it holds one’s attention.

A decade later, The Lodger was taken up by director John Brahm, and writer Barre Lyndon, and given the Hollywood treatment. For me this is the most satisfying version for the reasons already given. Laird Cregar’s creepy performance in the Ivor Novello role. George Sander’s unctuously couth inspector. (He would have made a brilliant Sherlock Holmes.)

And where else can one see Merle Oberon dance a can-can?! But most of all it is the brilliant direction of John Brahm, who was known for the early horror film The Undying Monster. The lighting in this version is absolutely breathtaking. When one of the victims is getting ready to go to bed in her squalid flat, she suddenly realizes there is a man in her room. The camera pushes her back against the wall and she covers her face with her hands, letting out a bloodcurdling scream. It is one of the most horrifying scenes ever caught on celluloid, similar in tone to some of the best work by James Whale.

Later, towards the end of the film, there’s a memorable scene in which Cregar is crawling along a catwalk above the stage where Merle Oberon is performing. The light thrust up between the rungs of the crosswalk illuminates Cregar’s face in a pattern of quickly moving bars, eerily reminiscent of the light cast by a silent movie projector. Is this a subtle homage to Hitchcock? Or just a brilliant device? Moments later, when Cregar is backed up against a wall, his face is framed in a painfully harsh light that reveals the tormented monster he truly is.

Brahm and Cregar went on to capitalize on the box office success of The Lodger by crafting a sequel of sorts: Hangover Square.

While not about Jack the Ripper, it tells the story of a psychopathic composer who kills uncontrollably when he suffers spells caused by shrill sounds. It’s a real hoot. And while it doesn’t quite rise to the level of The Lodger, it has some devastating moments. Cregar lost over a hundred pounds prior to taking the role. And boy does it show. He is surprisingly handsome here and the loss of extra weight seems to have freed him to act in new directions. Alas, it was because of his rapid weight loss that Cregar died shortly after making the film.

Why producers felt it necessary to remake The Lodger again in 1953 is beyond me. And why cast Jack Palance as the Ripper? He is so obviously creepy that it undermines the suspense. But this film version, called The Man in the Attic, is worth watching as a counterpoint to the other versions.

Using the same script as the Cregar version, it is almost identical in some shots. I even wondered if they had used some of the footage from the earlier film. There’s one scene where a Bobby is looking for the killer on a rooftop and is attacked by pigeons that is identical to the previous one. Even the costumes seem to have come from the same distributor. But there are very important differences. The showgirl here, played by the very beautiful Constance Smith, sings with a dubbed-in saccharine 50s voice that sounds so canned that it almost smells of sardines. And there’s a bit more flesh. It hardly seems possible that in Victorian England, an actress would strip down to her birthday suit to take a bath on stage.

One of the odder “updatings” is that the character of Smith’s dresser at the theatre is now written as a dour woman from India. Why this change? Was this some underhanded reference to Merle Oberon (seen above in one of her “exotic” moods) who starred in the previous version? Oberon’s Indian heritage was a well-known Hollywood “secret.” And as revealed in the biographical novel Queenie by Michael Korda, based on Oberon’s life, her mother posed as her servant. Perhaps if the film were better, one’s mind wouldn’t wander off on such far-fetched tangents!

The most appalling change is that here, instead of being madly in love with his “brother,” the Jack Palance character shows us a small painting of his mother, an actress who became a streetwalker in Whitechapel when she fell on hard times. The detective informs us that the Ripper’s first victim was this woman, his mother. This is an absurd twist, and a vain attempt to explain his behavior. And worse, it’s a far cry from the odd homosexual psycho-drama that plagued Cregar in his much better version.

In the Jack Palance version, Edward, the Prince of Wales, comes to hear the showgirl perform. This is an ironic touch since years later books would be written claiming that it was Edward’s son, Prince Albert, aka “Eddy” who was actually Jack the Ripper.

So my advice to anyone who cares is that the next time you take a room at a hotel on a business trip or vacation, bring along a copy of The Lodger — and any of its four (make that five) film versions — and curl up in your bed while enjoying it. But make sure to leave the light on.

Every Halloween some jack o’lantern out there on the internet comes up with a new list of his ten favorite horror movies. I thought I’d give it a shot and do the same. But I could not limit myself to merely ten titles. You try it! So I’ve decided on my 50 faves, arranged alphabetically below.

Putting together any list of scary movies is a daunting task, and a highly problematic one. For instance, should one include films that are frightening, but essentially grounded in another genre? War of the Worlds (the original, not the tragic remake) might make the list, but calling it a horror film somehow takes away from its topnotch sci-fi credentials and its status of being inspired by two non-horror geniuses: H. G. Wells and Orson Welles. Likewise, I can’t watch To Kill a Mockingbird without being scared to death during the scene where Boo is hiding behind the door. But that doesn’t make it a horror film. And what of a film like Psycho which I see is on many people’s lists? I am certainly terrified while watching it, especially at its shriekingly bizarre climax, but it’s much more a thriller in the Hitchcock tradition than my own pick, Maniac, which used a similar idea but in a much more horrific vein, and featured extraordinary work by master makeup artist Tom Savini.

Then what is one to make of a film like Freaks? This masterpiece by Tod Browning, who also directed the brilliant Dracula, was marketed as a love story, not a horror film. But its candid depiction of carny life (cast seen above) freaked out audiences in the 30s when it was first distributed. The film was immediately pulled from theatres and only became a cult classic decades later. Same with the extremely eerie Peeping Tom by Michael Powell, who glamorized the world of ballet in The Red Shoes. A film about voyeurism, Peeping Tom was banned in some cities and wasn’t rediscovered until the 70s after its horrific content was no longer as controversial. It’s still difficult to watch however.

As for the bucket of blood-letting pix in the 70s and 80s, they do little for me. What makes a film scary is suspense, not splatter. Think of The Spiral Staircase starring Dorothy McGuire. What the director did with lighting and sets is far more frightening than anything in the Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street series. I would have included it here, but ultimately it’s a thriller and a mystery, not a horror picture, and I think The Uninvited, which deals with real ghosts rather than serial killers, is a much better example of the genre. Today’s horror films, Saw and Hostel, for example, strike me as merely lessons in audience disdain. These are exploitation flicks in the worst sense and offer little in the way of artistry or style. If they were funny, they might have some redeeming quality. But they don’t fit the “so-bad-it’s-good” criteria that make a horror film a classic. A good example of that is the hilarious X, below, starring Ray Milland. He also appears in Frogs which is better than laughing gas.

Sometimes a remake is better than the original. Some felt that way about Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And The Fly. I beg to differ. The Paul Schrader Cat People was pretty good, but in my book, the best remake was The Thing (1982) by John Carpenter (of Halloween fame) which improved upon the silly “intelligent carrot” concept of the original by Howard Hawks.

You might differ with me on some of my choices. The low-budget Fear No Evil, filmed in Alexandria Bay in New York’s Thousand Islands (and in Boldt Castle) is rarely discussed in lists of good horror films. But like Martin, by George Romero, it revolutionized the idea of what a vampire movie could be. It came out around the same time as The Evil Dead which received accolades and made its director a star. But I find Fear No Evil a much more innovative movie. Another forgotten vampire classic is The Velvet Vampire starring Michael Blodgett. Set in the desert of the Southwest, it breathed new life into an aging genre by using shocking sex and 60s hip counter-culture trappings with wit and style.

I am not sure why I’ve included three Brian DePalma movies (Sisters, Carrie and The Fury), and left out Phantom of the Paradise, one of his best movies. It’s campy and scary but somehow it just didn’t give me the chills the other three selections have. Same with Rocky Horror Picture Show, which deserves to be on many lists but not on this one. I might be stretching a case here or there for the sake of argument and in generating an intelligent debate. Plan 9 From Outer Space is usually confined to the list of the world’s worst movies. But when I saw it as a child on Chiller Theater it almost made me into a raving lunatic. I was haunted by its imagery even though I couldn’t follow the story. Seeing Vampira pass through a cemetery still gives me the creeps.

In most cases, rather than listing a title, I’ve used the film poster as an illustration. But to liven things up a bit and to make this list more of a puzzle, I’ve used some stills from the pictures. See if you can name the film based on the photo I’ve chosen. Please also keep in mind that in some cases I’ve included movies that are simply favorites of mine for reasons that have nothing to do with how truly scary they are, but in how campy or funny they can seem. Joan Crawford’s Berserk and Strait-Jacket won’t keep you up at night but they’ll certainly cause you to laugh your head off.

And which is my favorite? That’s hard to say. Depends on one’s mood. But if I were to look back on my entire film viewing experience, there’s one movie that stands out and lingers in my memory. Carnival of Souls. Set partly in an abandoned amusement park outside Salt Lake City, Carnival of Souls (seen below) was a drive-in indie that despite its minuscule budget created an atmosphere of unbearable gloom. Its eerie organ score set the dark, menacing tone. Even now, just thinking about its ghoulish hitchhiker gives me shivers.

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