Saw 3D, Dark Shadows, Dead Sea, Cold Creek Manor, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and The Maltese Falcon
Horror Bulletin Weekly Newsletter #276
It must be Spring– there’s no new horror this week. Instead, we’ll take a look at some more oldies. We’ll start with the seventh Saw movie, “Saw 3D: The Final Chapter.” It wasn’t in 3D for us, and it wasn’t the final chapter, but that’s the way things go sometimes. We’ll stop in on Johnny Depp and Tim Burton with 2012’s “Dark Shadows” spoof. Then we’ll watch a contender for Worst Movie of All Time with “Dead Sea.” As a palette cleanser, we’ll watch the stalker movie “Cold Creek Manor.”
The weekly newsletter this time around has two more oldies. Neither of these films are horror, but both star Peter Lorre, the subject of this week’s free biography:
“The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1932 ) Hitchcock!
“The Maltese Falcon” (1941) Bogart!
Check out all our books with one easy link: https://brianschell.com/collection/horrorguys
Announcement!
We’ve launched a new series of books under a new imprint: Hourlong Press now offers a new, free, nonfiction book every week.
Check out https://hourlongpress.com/
and sign up for the weekly free book newsletter. The first half-dozen or so books will be about legendary horror icons: Vincent Price, Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, etc., so I’ll be pointing those out in this newsletter, but to get future, non-horror–related books, you’ll need to be on that email list.
For the next five days, you can get “Peter Lorre: The Biography” absolutely for free from Amazon.
Next week, there’ll be another!
Here. We. Go!
Saw 3D: The Final Chapter (2010)
AKA “Saw VII”
Directed by Kevin Greitert
Written by Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan
Stars Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell, Cary Elwes
Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This one continues on from the previous film while also going back to events following the first film and filling in some more details of the whole story. John is gone, but the things he set in motion still continue. This was quite good, consistent in quality with most of the other sequels. If you liked those, you’ll probably like this one too.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open to a flashback to the end of the first film, as the credits roll. Dr. Gordon crawls out of the big bathroom, lacking a foot and bleeding profusely. He cauterizes the wound by burning it on a hot water pipe, which looks excruciating.
We cut to a big “home renovation” display out in the middle of the town square, but this one has two guys chained to a saw-contraption. There’s also a girl suspended above the saw. Billy the puppet rides in on his bike, talking to Brad and Ryan about how the girl played both of them. There’s a huge crowd outside watching the whole thing as the saws spin up. Only two of them are getting out of this. This is a very toxic love triangle. She yells that she loves Brad, so Ryan pushes the saw into him. But there’s a lot of yelling, and the guys figure out she was playing them both and is still trying to. “I think we’re breaking up with you, Tina,” says one of them as she’s lowered onto the blade. Every cop in town shows up at this point.
We get a flashback to the previous film, where Jill puts Hoffman into the jaw-ripping helmet as per John’s “final request.” He escapes with a bit of facial damage. He goes back to one of his hideouts and sews up his Joker-like face. Then he burns his fake ID cards and most of the evidence that could be used against him.
Jill goes to Matt Gibson, an Internal Affairs cop, and she wants to talk in exchange for immunity. Meanwhile, Bobby, one of the survivors of Jigsaw’s games, is in town promoting his new self-help book. He talks about finding the strength to survive, and how it helped him take control of his own life afterward.
Jill leaves the police station and is immediately grabbed by Hoffman, who puts her in a complicated spike-car that reminds us that this is a 3D movie. Then she wakes up; just a nightmare.
A guy named Evan wakes up to hear a Jigsaw recording that explains how his racist friends are going to die if he doesn’t save them. He’s glued to a seat in a car that’s about to fall on his girlfriend and rip off a friend’s jaw and run over another friend if he doesn’t stop it. There is much screaming from all of them as the counter hits zero. Everybody dies.
We cut to Bobby’s “Jigsaw Support Group” the next day, where a victim talks about kicking her abusive husband into spinning saw blades. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me.” Bobby credits his wife, Joyce, for getting him through his recovery. Surprisingly, Dr. Gordon, from the first film, is there as well, and he calls out Bobby on his BS. Someone grabs Bobby on the way out of the meeting.
Matt Gibson gets a call about the four people who died in the car trap at the junkyard. Hoffman left clues for Gibson, personally. He puts Jill in a safe house, but Hoffman knows all about it.
Bobby wakes up in a metal tube. Billy comes on screen and accuses Bobby of making the whole thing up; he’s never really been in a Jigsaw trap. But he is now. He has one hour to save his wife. He gets out of the spike trap easily enough, but there’s a whole series of challenges ahead of him.
Hoffman sends a tape to Gibson; he wants Jill for revenge. If he gets Jill, he’ll stop the killings. If he doesn’t, everyone dies.
Bobby finds his publicist in a trap. She’s been fed a key that will shut off her device, but there’s also a fishhook. Bobby needs to pull the key and the fishhook out of her stomach. Also, every time she screams, the sound activated spikes get closer to killing her. He pulls and pulls, blood gushing everywhere. He gets the key, but too late to save her.
Bobby flashes back to a book signing where John himself showed up. It’s clear that John didn’t approve of what Bobby’s been doing with his stolen valor. The police figure out that Bobby, his wife, and his handlers are all missing.
Bobby finds his lawyer in the next trap, which will pierce her eyes out. In order to free her, he needs to lift a bar that will slowly stab him as well. He does it but can’t hold it up long enough, and that’s really bad for her. Next, he finds his best friend, blindfolded and noosed. He’s suspended over a long fall, but there’s a narrow bridge of planks. Bobby has to talk his blindfolded friend across the planks. They’re both screaming idiots, and the key gets lost; the friend soon dies.
Gibson and Rogers follow a clue and go to a place where Hoffman shot a perpetrator in the back years ago. Gibson turned him in, and that went badly for Gibson.
Bobby finds his wife, but he can’t get to her without pulling some of his own teeth, one by one. As he starts pulling, we see Gibson and the police enter the building where he was in the first spike trap.
Bobby has finally reached his wife, but to save her, he has to actually survive the trap that he made up for his book. Bobby admits his lie to her.
Gibson closes in on Hoffman, but it’s a trick; there’s no one there. There’s a booby-trap machine gun that kills them all. Back in the warehouse, additional traps start killing all the police there.
Across town, Hoffman opens up a body bag; he’s escaped to the morgue. He kills the people working there and then goes through the police station, killing everyone in his path.
Bobby puts the hooks through his chest muscles, screaming the whole time. He then hoists himself up to the roof to plug two wires together. His chest rips apart, and he falls before he can connect the wires.
Hoffman makes his way to where Jill is being held. She stabs him in the neck and runs off, but all the doors are locked.
Bobby watches as his wife is enclosed in an oven and starts to cook alive. He’s just really not very good at solving these traps to save people. Meanwhile, Hoffman beats the crap out of Jill. He finally puts her in the “jaw machine” and sets the timer. It rips her head apart. Hoffman then makes his escape after blowing up his last hideout. As promised, he killed everyone to get Jill.
On his way out, Hoffman’s captured by Dr. Gordon and some men in pig masks. We get a flashback to John leaving Gordon a special message. John helped him heal and replaced his missing foot. Turns out, he’s been working with John all along.
Hoffman wakes up in the big bathroom, where Gordon has him chained to the wall, just like he was so long ago. Gordon takes the hacksaw away though. “I don’t think so.” Gordon leaves him there, chained to the wall in the dark. “Game over.”
Commentary
Bobby may be the worst “player” in the whole franchise; he didn’t save a single person.
Some of the early deaths are simply excuses for neat murder devices but don’t have a lot to do with the overarching plot. We didn’t watch the 3D version, but most of the deaths are rather splattery, so that’s what that’s all about.
This one is only loosely connected to the previous films, as John/Jigsaw is dead by this time. John only appears in a brief flashback, and even Hoffman doesn’t show up too much. Dr. Gordon makes a comeback, which ties things in a little bit right at the end.
Dark Shadows (2012)
Directed by Tim Burton
Written by Seth Grahame-Smith, John August, Dan Curtis
Stars Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green
Run Time: 1 Hour, 53 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was strange, funny, and horrifying at the same time, as Tim Burton is able to manage in his direction. It’s based on a years-long soap opera, and they manage to make a story fitting into movie length very nicely. The cast and effects are good, and we both enjoyed it more this second viewing than we did the first time we saw it.
Spoilery Synopsis
Liverpool 1760. Young Barnabas Collins and Angelique board a ship to come to America. A year later, the family is rich and powerful in Collinsport, Maine. The family built a huge mansion, Collingwood. Years pass and grown Barnabas and Angelique have sex, but he admits he doesn’t love her. She does what any reasonable woman would do– puts a curse on his parents, killing them.
Meanwhile, Barnabas falls in love with Josette, which just causes Angelique to curse Barnabas himself. Then Josette, possessed, jumps off a cliff to her death. Barnabas, too, jumps to his death, except he isn’t killed. He gets back up again– he’s been cursed to become a vampire. Angelique and the townspeople then take Barnabas and bury him alive in a coffin wrapped in chains. Now it’s 1972. Credits roll.
Maggie Evans takes a train to Collinsport, but she decides to use the name Victoria Winters instead. She’s going to be the new governess at the Collins place. Willie Loomis answers the door; he’s the only one of two servants. The other is a very slow moving old woman who has many amusing bits throughout, but never says a word. Victoria meets Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, who shows her around. Victoria is there to work with David, who has not taken his mother’s death, three years ago, well. Carolyn is the oldest daughter. Roger is Elizabeth’s brother, and David’s father. Dr. Julia Hoffman is there; she’s David’s psychiatrist. David swears his mother still talks to him.
That night. Victoria sees Josette’s ghost. “He’s coming,” she warns. Outside of town, men are digging to build a new McDonald’s, and they find a coffin where there shouldn’t be one, and it’s all chained shut. They cut the bolts, which turns out to be a bad idea for all of them.
Barnabas, now freed and well fed, walks through the woods and finds weirdness like paved roads and a car. The town has changed a lot since he was there last. He eventually makes his way home… to Collingwood, which has not been well maintained. Barnabas talks to Willie and hypnotically enslaves him.
Barnabas and Willie walk through the big house, which confuses Carolyn and David. Elizabeth questions him; he looks just like that ancient painting over the fireplace. She tells him what she knows about the original Barnabas’s death. Barnabas says he’s the same man, and a vampire. Still, he promises to not harm any of them.
Barnabas then opens a secret door where all his treasures are stored. In the morning, he meets the rest of the family. Elizabeth knows what he’s all about, but the others think he’s a loon. They talk about the family business, and how it’s not what it used to be. Barnabas is going to fix that.
Then Vickie walks into the room, and she looks exactly like Josette, which Barnabas notices immediately.
The Collins’s business competitor, Angel Bay, is run by Angelique, who knows what happened in the cemetery last night. She drives right over to Collinswood; Willie’s not smart enough to lie about him being there. They wake up Barnabas, and he recognizes her, too. Yes, they’re both immortal, and she quickly puts him in his place.
Barnabas gets depressed, and Elizabeth gives him an odd pep talk. He immediately begins renovation on the decrepit old house as we get a comedic montage of Barnabas learning the 20th century. He meets up with Clarney, an old Angel Bay fisherman, about a fishing contract, and hypnotizes him to work for the Collins company.
Julia hypnotizes Barnabas and learns the truth. Julia then begins work on a serum to “cure” Barnabas by transfusing his blood.
Angelique and Barnabas talk about their businesses. She wants to buy theirs, and he refuses. She still wants to get back together with him, but he’s revolted. Yet also aroused. They have rough supernatural sex, and it really tears up the room.
Vickie has a weird nightmare followed by another Josette sighting. Julia looks sick at breakfast, where Barnabas demands that the family throw a ball; they can get Alice Cooper to perform.
The party is really something. A de-aged Alice Cooper performs, and Barnabas calls him the “ugliest woman I’ve ever seen.” Vickie says it feels like she’s known Barnabas forever. She tells him the story about how her own family locked her up for being psychic; she’s always been able to see ghosts. It was Josette’s ghost that pointed out the ad for the governess position.
Barnabas figures out that Julia’s not trying to take his blood to make him mortal; she’s using it to make herself immortal. He sucks her dry in anger. He and Willie dump her body in the ocean. Barnabas then finds Roger searching for his treasure and talks him into leaving town. Not long after, the whole family sees what Barnabas really is.
Angelique threatens to kill Vickie if Barnabas doesn’t join her. He refuses, so she puts him back in his coffin and drives out of town, magically making the Collins Fishery explode on the way out. She then leaves him in the family crypt. David opens the coffin twenty minutes later; his dead mother told him to do it.
Angelique goes to the sheriff and plays a recording of Barnabas admitting to being a killer. An angry mob descends on Collingwood, led by Angelique. Barnabas agrees to go with the mob, but first he bites Angelique. She’s revealed as a witch. The sheriff sends the mob home, but the two immortals face off. Elizabeth’s got a shotgun, and Carolyn is revealed to be a werewolf. This family was messed up long before Barnabas showed up. He may be the normal one.
Carolyn jumps on Angelique, but she can’t do much. Angelique admits tormenting the family for generations. David walks in and warns her to leave now, or his mother will get her. David’s dead mother does show up, and she’s not happy. The house catches on fire and Barnabas and Angelique have a final conversation about love and curses before she dies.
During all this, Vickie has walked through the woods up to the same cliff that Josette jumped off. This time, Barnabas catches her. She jumps anyway, and he bites her on the way down, turning her into a vampire too.
We get a final glimpse of Julia, deep under the ocean, waking up.
Commentary
Christopher Lee has a cameo as Clarney, the old fishing captain. It’s not much of a role, but he was 90 years old by this point. Four members of the original cast, Lara Parker (Angelique Bouchard), Jonathan Frid (Barnabas Collins), David Selby (Quentin Collins) and Kathryn Leigh Scott (Maggie Evans/Josette) appear in the ballroom scene.
It takes the original, drawn-out soap opera and makes it a modern comedy. I saw this when it came out, and I was offended that they took my favorite soap and demeaned it so badly. This time around, I knew what I was going to get and liked it quite a lot. I’d be all in for an ongoing series of this. The special effects hold up really well, the cast is excellent.
It’s essentially the same set-up as the original story, but instead of going on for years, it all gets wrapped up fairly quickly, something the original never got a chance to do.
Short Film: Ice Trays (2024)
By “Deformed Lunchbox”
Stars Jacqueline Poorter, Miranda Rose, Abbey Sholzberg
Run Time: 3:50
Watch it:
What Happens
A woman takes an ice tray from the fridge, but the ice is red. She asks her daughter about it, but she doesn’t know. The woman then tries tasting one of the ice cubes…
Commentary
It’s nice to see a wholesome family video where everyone gets along and is generally happy. Grandpa, however, is really a messy drinker. Who drinks in a vibrating chair, anyway? That’s the REAL horror of this story.
It's very nice. There’s no dialog, but it’s always clear what's happening. The cinematography and sound are good, the music is appropriate, and it’s very funny.
Contact Dead Sea (2014)
Directed by Brandon Slagle
Written by Brandon Slagle
Stars Britt Griffith, Alexis Lacono, JW Wiseman, Devanny Pinn
Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This starts with a lake monster and goes to soldiers in the desert years later and then some characters do stuff and then there’s more lake monster and characters do more stuff. It’s kind of disjointed, but it comes together eventually. It’s not done very well, and we didn’t enjoy it at all.
Synopsis
California, 1983. We watch a tearful farewell as a young father leaves his wife and child before taking a canoe out to feed himself to an unseen sea monster.
In the Middle East, 2002, soldiers shoot at the locals and interrogate prisoners. They incorporate all the cliches of a desert warfare movie. This goes on for a long time, and seems to have nothing to do with a sea monster. Why are we watching this?
One of the soldiers asks another, about what happened to his father in 1983. The soldier explains that the monster shows up every thirty years to feed. How did the other soldier know anything happened? Why did the subject of a sea monster come up in the middle of a desert battle?
We cut to a woman talking about a “dig site,” and then switch to a hairy hillbilly in bed marking days off a calendar. The woman with the dig site is Victoria, and she’s a heavy drinker. There’s some stuff between drug dealers who act sad after murdering a guy.
We cut to a bunch of young people on a pontoon boat in the summer. One of them is named Auriel. We cut back and forth between young people in bikinis and the hillbilly guy talking to a guy named Castor. Castor watches the young people with his binoculars.
The young people jump in the water and everything gets dark and creepy. All of a sudden, everyone in the water is bloody and dead. Castor watches it all but doesn’t react. He rows to the pontoon boat in his canoe and looks around.
Later, Auriel wakes up on the shore.
Victoria gets a phone call from some guy who wants her to check out a report of dead fish on the lakeshore. He called her because she’s familiar with the area. The reports are similar to those from 1983 and 1953.
Some woman mumbles some stuff. The hillbilly marks another day off his calendar. One of the drug dealers has flashbacks to the desert thing. I didn’t realize its the same guy. I don't know because no one talks to him. I started browsing Reddit while rolling my eyes at this thing. I’ll stop back in if something interesting happens in this…
…
…
…
OK, so Victoria and the drug soldier, Kier, know each other, and the hillbilly is Victoria’s father, Callan. We’re nearly an hour into this, and I’ve finally figured out who the characters are!
Auriel tells Victoria that there’s a sea monster in the man-made reservoir. Some other guys say “the offering must be a native.” Auriel says Victoria needs to be the sacrifice because she’s local.
There is running and screaming and men walking slowly with guns. Somehow, chasing Victoria through caves in the desert has something to do with the sea monster.
Eventually, Callum decides to be the sacrifice so that Victoria can leave town.
Commentary
It’s like the director had a bunch of random footage and just decided to throw it all together and call it a film. It started out making no sense and then just got worse and worse as it went along, seemingly without any limit to the worsening.
The acting is atrocious. The direction is atrocious. The story and plot are atrocious. The sound design is atrocious. The special effects are atrocious. The lighting…. Oh, you get the idea.
This is… just terrible. If you see this DVD in the bottom of the bin at the dollar store, do the world a favor and buy them all, then go outside and run over them with your car. Then wash your hands three times to get the stink off.
Kevin’s Addendum to Brian’s review: I did get the DVD from the bin at the dollar store. I apologize to Brian and all of you for the damage I unknowingly inflicted.
Cold Creek Manor (2003)
Directed by Mike Figgis
Written by Richard Jefferies
Stars Dennis Quaid, Sharon Stone, Stephen Dorff, Juliette Lewis
Run Time: 1 Hour, 59 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is a mystery thriller with horror elements. We suspect early on the way things are going to head, and it pulls us along nicely as things are filled in. There’s a very strong cast with a decent story. We liked it quite a bit.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on Cooper and Leah Tilson in New York City. She flies off on a business trip, and he oversleeps. The kids, Kristen and Jesse, are late for school, and it’s all very annoying and hectic. Son Jesse ends up getting hit by a car, but he’ll be OK. “We’ve got to get out of this city,” Cooper complains.
They sell their house in the city and plan to buy an old foreclosure way out in the country. They get directions to a place called Cold Creek Manor from Ruby, who works at the nearby gas station/diner/store. It turns out to be an old deserted mansion, so they let themselves in to explore. It’s full of old books and things; it looks like the people who lived there just left it all. They like the place, but then the local sheriff comes and makes them leave. She didn’t realize the place was on the market.
They do, in fact, buy the house and move in. They sell a lot of the old antiques inside the house and plan to renovate. It looks like the previous owners left in a hurry; there’s a lot of stuff in the house.
The family goes to Pinski’s, the local restaurant, and meets the owners. They’ve lived in this little town for many years. Ruby and her friends overhear the entire conversation. Cooper buys their horse for the kids. Cooper mentions that he’s a documentary filmmaker, and he’s looking into the history of the family who used to live in the house.
Then they find a man who has entered their house. He says his name is Dale Massey, and he used to live here. He invites himself for dinner, and it’s all very awkward. He admits that he didn’t keep up the payments and the bank repossessed the place. He just got out of jail after three years and needs a job. Could they use him as a handyman? The Tilsons are creeped out, but they hire him to clean up and get the pool running.
Dale goes to see Ruby right afterward. They are close. Later, Dale explains how they used to kill animals on the farm in the old days. There’s one of those tools missing. Within a few days, Dale has the pool working and he’s moved on to other projects. He flirts with Leah, and Cooper’s not happy about it.
The sheriff asks Cooper about Dale. The sheriff is Ruby’s sister. Dale’s father is still alive, living in a nearby nursing home. Cooper goes to see the old man, who has dementia. All his livestock, 10,000 sheep, got hoof and mouth disease, and he had to kill them all with those hammers. He gets really upset when he learns that Cooper bought his house.
In the morning, we see that there are snakes all over the house, but no one notices them right away. They all find the snakes at about the same time, and chaos ensues. Lots of snakes. The whole family ends up on the roof, but there are snakes there too. Dale comes to the rescue, which Cooper finds suspicious.
Cooper fires Dale, but Leah doesn’t see anything wrong with Dale. Ray Pinski warns Cooper not to alienate the town, so Cooper buys drinks for everyone. Even Ruby warns Cooper about Dale. Dale ends up punching Ruby and getting into a bar fight as Cooper watches. The sheriff breaks it up, but Dale doesn’t look impressed. This culminates in Dale chasing Cooper home in his car.
In the morning, they find their horse dead in the swimming pool. From the damage on the car, they all assume Cooper did it while drunk last night. He blames Dale, but Leah doesn’t believe him. Leah wants to go back to the city, but they can’t afford to move out. The sheriff suggests exactly the same thing.
Dale confronts the family publicly when he finds out Cooper is making a movie about his family. It’s clear that he’s not quite right in the head.
Cooper finds a retainer buried in the driveway along with a tooth. Then he finds a photo of one of the kids who used to live there, wearing that same retainer. Leah comes up behind him, “He killed his children.” He sends Leah and kids away while he looks for more evidence. He finds a car on the property, and it belonged to Dale’s “missing” wife.
Cooper takes what he has to the sheriff, but she says it’s all circumstantial. She also doubts that Dale is a murderer. She loans him a two-way radio while she investigates.
At the hospital, Dale visits his father and the old man knows Dale lost the farm. “You’re the corrupt spawn of your whoring mother,” the old man accuses. “I saw everything you did. She was leaving you and taking the kids. They weren’t even your kids. What did you do with the bodies?” Dale then kills the old man.
Cooper researches maps to figure out where the bodies might be buried, but he has no clues. He hears a noise in the house and almost knocks out Leah. She knows where the bodies are hidden; the kids found that place right after they moved in. The two of them go out in the woods and find a covered well. Cooper lowers his night-vision camera down in the hole. They look at the footage and see at least one body down there.
Meanwhile, the sheriff is calling the dentist working on the retainer clue. Ruby stops in to visit her sister and finds the sheriff dead.
Dale comes up to Leah and pushes her into the well. Cooper returns and helps her climb back out. They walk back to the house and find their car is on fire. Dale cuts the power to the house and comes in screaming. He smashes Cooper’s office with one of his animal-killing hammers. He chases them through the house up to the roof.
Finally, the two men fight it out. As Dale stops to monologue, Leah and Cooper grab a rope. They swing him onto the skylight and smash it beneath him, dropping him through several stories of glass.
Later, we see Ruby at Dale’s grave. Cooper and his family live happily ever after at the house.
Commentary
I had no idea Kristin Stewart was in anything before Twilight.
It’s pretty clear as soon as Dale shows up where this is all heading, but the mystery is in finding out why Dale is the way he is.
It’s really more of a thriller than a horror, but it has many horror elements and a lot of suspense. It’s good!
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Charles Bennett, B. D. Wyndham-Lewis, Edwin Greenwood
Stars Leslie Banks, Edna Best, Peter Lorre, Frank Vosper
Run Time: 1 Hour, 16 Minutes
Watch it:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is a spy thriller with a lot crammed into a small package. For such a short film, there are a lot of characters and quite a bit that goes on. It moves briskly and is pretty entertaining overall, very dated but that adds to the charm. Hitchcock remade this in 1956 starring James Stewart, which is a more well known version, but this one is worth checking out.
Spoilery Synopsis
As credits roll, we see that Bob and Jill Lawrence are going on a vacation to Switzerland. Bob bumps into a man named Abbott in a skiing accident. Bob’s daughter, Betty, makes Louis crash on his skis. Meanwhile, Jill is off competing in a trap shooting match. She loses to Mr. Levine. Betty messes her game up as well. They’re all having a lot of fun playing little pranks on each other.
It’s all fun and games until someone shoots through the window and kills Louis. Before he dies, he whispers to Jill, “The brush in my room– take it to the British consulate.” Bob and Jill goe to Louis’s room and find the brush.
Bob finds a message in the brush, but the police show up and catch him in the room. Bob wants to see the British Consul, but the police aren’t cooperative. A man brings Bob a message, “Say nothing of what you found or you will never see your child again.” Yes, Betty has been kidnapped.
Bob and Jill come home from Switzerland, and the police inspector seems to know what happened to Betty; Bob asks them to leave. Jill talks to her brother, Clive, about Betty and toy trains. Gibson is with the Foreign Office of the British government, Louis worked for him in the intelligence service; he wants what was in the brush. He also knows Betty was kidnapped to keep Bob quiet. Gibson explains that Louis knew about a plot to assassinate Mr. Ropa, an important man, when Louis was killed himself. In the middle of the conversation, Bob gets a call reminding him about the danger Betty is in. Gibson leaves, disappointed.
Bob goes to the address on the note, which is a dentist’s office. Mr. Abbott, whom we saw before, is there. The dentist soon figures out that the man in the chair is lying to him. There’s a struggle, and Bob knocks out the dentist with gas and steals his lab coat. Ramon Levine, whom we have also seen before, comes in to talk to Abbott. Bob overhears their whole conversation by standing in as the dentist.
Bob and Clive follow their next clue to a church; they have to sing rather than speak, which adds a little humor to the situation. Agnes, the woman in charge, hypnotizes Clive in front of the whole group.
A woman draws a gun on Bob; they’re captured. Abbott is there as well, and he knew about Bob’s swap with the dentist. Levine comes in with a gun, and Bob fights back. They all gang up on Bob, but Clive gets out through the window. Clive calls Jill and tells her where Betty is– Royal Albert Hall. When Clive returns with the police, Abbott says Clive is drunk and wrecked the inside of the church. The police go away; they believe Abbot’s story and arrest Clive.
Abbott brings in Betty to see Bob. Abbott explains the plan to Levine; he’s to shoot Mr. Ropa at a certain point in the symphony at the Royal Albert Hall.
Jill goes to Albert Hall, and is warned off by one of the kidnappers. She sits down and watches the show, noting the police officer by the door. Meanwhile, Abbott, Bob, and the goons listen to the performance on the radio. Jill spots Levine, the assassin, up in a box, and Mr. Ropa in another box, but what can she do? She screams and gets the police to follow Levine.
As Levine returns to Abbott’s place, the radio announces that Levine’s shot missed; he must have been distracted by the scream. Abbott spots the police outside and knows that Levine has been followed. The police soon surround the building. There’s a large-scale shootout as snipers in the building shoot at the cops.
There’s a long standoff between the conspirators and the police. During all the shooting Bob gets out of the room he’s been locked in and finds Betty. Agnes gets shot, Levine wants to give up, and Abbott knows they aren’t getting out alive. Abbott wants to use Betty as a hostage. Levine goes after Betty and shoots Bob in the back. They all climb up to the roof.
The police are afraid to shoot, but Jill grabs a gun and shoots Levine, who falls off the roof. The police storm the building and find Abbott hiding, where they shoot him. Bob, who isn’t dead, reunites with Betty and Jill. Happy ending!
Commentary
This was Peter Lorre’s first real English role after leaving Germany, and he learned most of the lines phonetically. Just coincidentally, the first director he met in London was Alfred Hitchcock. Lucky break! Lorre’s Abbott is friendly, funny, polite, and completely evil. He finds most of the actions of Bob and his own people hilarious. With the exception of Lorre, it’s a pretty straightforward old-timey spy film about a simple assassination that gets over complicated.
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Directed by John Huston
Written by John Huston, Dashiell Hammett
Stars Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet
Run Time: 1 Hour, 40 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This deserves its status as a classic example of noir crime drama. The story, acting, and direction are all excellent. We’d highly recommend it, it’s a very fun watch.
Spoilery Synopsis
We are told that the “Maltese Falcon” was a golden bird encrusted with jewels. It was stolen by pirates and hasn’t been seen since.
Effie the secretary lets Mrs. Wanderly into the Spade and Archer detective office. She’s looking for her sister, who has gone missing. Miles Archer, Spade’s partner, comes in, and Sam explains the situation to him. Miles goes out that night to follow the woman’s sister’s boyfriend, but someone shoots him.
Sam is notified about Miles’s death, and he rushes over to the crime scene. Detective Tom Polhaus shows Sam the gun that killed Miles. Sam calls Mrs. Wanderly, but she can’t be found. Detective Dundy stops by Sam’s place, and they suspect him of killing Miles. They don’t really think he did it, but they may have to arrest him anyway.
The next day, Sam goes to his office, and Iva Archer, Miles’s widow, is there. She and Sam had been having an affair. “Sam, did you kill him?” He shows her the door quickly. Effie tells Sam that Iva was out all night; could she have killed Miles?
Sam wastes no time making it the Sam Spade agency, removing Archer’s name.
Sam gets a call from Mrs. Wanderly and he hurries over there. She admits that her whole story was a lie. Her real name is Brigid O’Shaughnessy. She gives him a sob story, and he calls her out on it. She says that Thurlsby, the man she wanted followed, carried two revolvers and was really paranoid. He takes her $500 and says he’ll help; then he calls his lawyer and asks about whether or not he has to talk to the police.
Joel Cairo, who smells of lavender, comes into the office. He’s very well-dressed and asks about the case. He wants to recover “an ornament that has been mislaid. A black figure of a bird.” He’s willing to pay $5000 for the bird’s recovery. Then he pulls a gun and says he’s going to search the room. Sam punches him and knocks him out, then searches Cairo. Sam gives him the gun back and gets held up– again.
Sam goes out and easily loses his police tail on the way to Brigid’s apartment. She knows who Cairo is, and she knows about “the black bird” as well. They leave a message so that Cairo can meet them both later. Cairo says he can get the money quickly, and Brigid says it might be a week before she can get the bird. Brigid tells Cairo that “the fat man” killed Thurlsby, which upsets Cairo. All three of them soon get into a slap-fight.
Sam goes to the door to talk to the police, but they’re interrupted when Brigid and Cairo get into a fight. Sam explains it all as a silly gag to play a game with the cops. Soon, Sam and Brigid are alone, and he wants answers. She describes the falcon that everyone is looking for.
Sam goes to Cairo’s hotel and finds Wilmer Cook, a young gun, waiting and watching for Cairo as well. When Cairo comes downstairs, he doesn’t want to get beat up again.
Sam goes to see Kasper Gutman, who is a very “fat man.” They talk about the black bird. Gutman is surprised that Sam doesn’t know what the bird is; Brigid and Cairo might not know what it is either. Gutman knows what it is, but he doesn’t want to say. Wilmer comes in with his gun as Sam storms out, angrily. He passes Cairo on the way out.
Sam goes back to Guzman and disarms Wilmer on the first try. The fat man talks about the Crusaders, who were given the Island of Malta. They were extremely wealthy, and they sent a jewel-encrusted falcon as a gift to the king. The bird was stolen by pirates, but it has turned up from time to time. It’s been coated and painted black to disguise it. Gutman has searched for seventeen years, but the bird is back on the radar, and he wants it. It’s possibly worth up to a million dollars. Sam passes out, his drink has been drugged; Gutman and Cairo have already struck a deal.
Sam wakes up sometime later and sees a newspaper article about a ship coming in from Hong Kong. When Sam arrives, that ship is on fire. He goes back to his office to talk to Effie, and a man staggers in and dies carrying the black bird. The man had been shot. Brigid calls on the phone; she needs help. He runs out, taking the bundle with him. Sam goes to the bus station and checks in the package as luggage.
The phone call turns out to be fake. When Sam comes home, Brigid is waiting for him, and so are Gutman, Cairo, and Wilmer. Gutman has $10,000 in an envelope for him in exchange for the falcon. Sam says they need a patsy for all the murders; why not Wilmer, who probably really did shoot Thurlsby. They discuss the idea as Wilmer stands there listening to the whole thing. Wilmer gets upset, so Sam knocks him out. Gutman says, “You can have him.” Gutman explains all the murders and dealings from his point of view.
Gutman tries to blame Brigid for stealing some of Sam’s money. Sam calls Effie and tells her where to pick up the bird and bring it to them. She drops it off as everyone waits. They unwrap the bundle, and inside is the black bird. Gutman, Cairo, and Brigid all drool over the thing.
Gutman scrapes it with his knife to get the coating off and declares it a lead fake. Cairo blows a fuse and starts to cry. Gutman figures the real one is in Istanbul, and might only take another year to track it down. The two want the money back, but Sam keeps a thousand. Gutman and Cairo politely leave.
Sam calls the detective and tells him everything about Wilmer, Cairo, and Gutman as well as where to find them. Sam accuses Brigid of killing his partner Miles, and she admits to it. He makes it clear that getting justice for Miles was important to him. She tries to seduce Sam one more time, and he says she’ll get out of prison in twenty years or so. The police show up, and he does as he said; he turns her in to the police.
Commentary
Humphrey Bogart is at the top of his game here. He’s smart, suave, and sleazy all at the same time. He knows right from the start that he’s being used by Brigid, but he plays along anyway. Lorre’s character, Cairo, smells of lavender, a codeword for homosexual, a topic they had to discreetly cover in the 1940’s. Cairo is polite, genteel, and very timidly nefarious. A secretary accidentally sent the first draft of the script to the studio, who approved it immediately, much to director John Huston’s surprise; he was preparing to rewrite the whole thing.
It’s a dense movie; a lot happens in rapid-fire succession. It never slows down or gets boring, but there’s a lot going on in every scene. It’s obviously extremely dated, but it’s still very entertaining and it’s so iconic that a thousand other films have reused ideas from it.
Stay tuned for more regular and bonus reviews next week!
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