Movies I Watched in November, Part 3

Christmas is over, New Year's is looming, so I'd better finish up the recap of November movie viewing. Here goes...

I've had the DVD set with this movie for a decade or so, but for some reason I never popped this 1932 adventure into the player. Big mistake on my part, because it's one of the most purely fun movies I've seen in a long, long time. Edmund Lowe plays the title character, a square-jawed American who traveled to the Far East to become a "yogi" and acquire mystical mind powers. The real star of the movie, however, is Bela Lugosi as the villainous "Roxor" who kidnaps a scientist so he can use his "death ray" to wipe out major cities around the world. It's just as ridiculous as that plot synopsis makes it sound, but gloriously so, offering the proverbial thrills, chills and spills in virtually every frame. There are some impressive stunts, some amazing sets (courtesy of director William Cameron Menzies and art director Max Parker) and some truly gorgeous cinematography (courtesy of a young James Wong Howe). Plus, it's full of the sort of crazy elements early 1930s movies were known for, from a drunken sidekick who gets his own imaginary mini-me (courtesy of Chandu) to curb his drinking to armies of white actors pretending to be, I dunno, middle eastern? to the young (young) ingenue being put up for sale in a slave market wearing a negligee that would not past muster when the Production Code took effect a few years later. Don't get me wrong, though -- "Chandu the Magician" is very well made and genuinely exciting, even 85 years later. (This forgotten little 1932 movie is going to earn a spot on my Best of 2017 list -- that's how much I enjoyed it.) One more thing: If Spielberg and Lucas didn't screen this before making "Raiders of the Lost Art," I'd be very, very surprised.


I've reviewed this one before (here, for instance), so I don't have much new to say about it, except that it's one of those "comfort" films that I pop in when I'm just looking to veg out and relax in front of the set. The fact that, for me, a "comfort" film is packed with clips from "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS," "Scum of the Earth" and "Blood Feast" probably says a little too much about me and my cinematic tastes.

One of the all-time great films noir, which I'd seen before (thanks to a freebie DVD when I was reviewing movies for the paper) but hadn't caught in a while. Thankfully, I remedied that on Thanksgiving, when my father-in-law (no slouch himself as a movie fan) and I watched it on TCM. It's even better than I remember, a smart, punchy tale of lovers on the run (played John Dall and Peggy Cummings) united by their love of firearms. He's cautious, she's adventurous, but neither can resist the charms of the other or the thrill of a life of crime. (The sexual tension here is constantly threatening to boil over.) Director Joseph H. Lewis brings just the right stripped-down style to the proceedings, with the movie starting off with a jolt as the childhood version of Dall's character (played by a young Russ Tamblyn, of all people) tosses a rock through a window to steal a gun. From then it never lets up, moving on to the justifiably legendary bank robbery filmed in one shot from the back of a car and winding up with a perfect, tragic ending that manages to skirt the edge of existential. I'm not kidding -- this really is one of the greats!