The Raven
Simultaneously a continuation and a send up of producer Roger Corman's Poe cycle, unlike the other Edger Allen Poe inspired films of this period staring Vincent Price, The Raven isn't a ruminative horror, but rather a tongue-in-check excursion based not so much on the titular poem, as just a string of lose references there to. Price does narrate some from the poem, and it does have a raven (actually Peter Lorre turned into a raven) as well as a lost Lenore (Hazel Court), other then that great liberties are taken.
Vincent Price is Dr. Erasmus Craven, a 15th century European sorcerer still mourning the lose of his second wife Lenore (note: Erasmus has a grown daughter from his first marriage played by Olive Sturgess, I wonder if he gave her mother equal despair time.) Anyway one evening a Raven flies into his parlor and revels himself to be in fact Dr. Adolphus Bedlo, a wizidaring colleague of Dr. Cravens, but not quite as adept as him. Bedlo was turned raven in a contest with rival Dr. Scarabus (Boris Karloff). Erasmus turns Bedlo back into his roly-poly self and then for reasons I forget agrees to accompany him to Scarabus castle. Scarabus at first plays nice, but is in fact out to learn the secrets of Dr. Cravens hand-movement based magic which he was taught by his late father, a former head of some kind of wizards professional organization.
Surprise turns out Lenore is not dead, but rather faked her death so she could hook up with the seemingly more promising Dr. Scarabus. Bedlo was actually working with Scarabus as part of rouse to lure Dr. Craven to the formers castle. Scarabus however turns on Bedlo, and Bedlo's son Rexford (played by Jack Nicholson in an early, oddly wooden performance) helps to rescue Craven's daughter Estlle when Scarabus takes her hostage to use against Erasmus. It's an odd picture, not funny, not scary, but Price and company seem to be having a fun time in an 'I can't believe we are actually getting away with this' half-assed kind of way. Good for them. **
Vice Raid
My first Mamie Van Doren movie. Here the low rent Marilyn Monroe plays a prostitute (though I don't think they ever actually use the word) brought to New York from Detroit to help "The Syndicate" smear a troublesome, incorruptible cop on the vice squad they just can't shake. "The Syndicate" is running their "pleasure girls" out of front modeling agencies located throughout the city. When Police Sergeant Whitey Brandon (Roger "Captain Video" Coogan) busts Van Doren's Carol Hudson for solicitation, she counters with chargers that the Sergeant demanded a bribe from her, charges which Brandon's secretly on the take partner Dunton (Joseph Sullivan) substantiates. This forces Brandon off the force, but his old superior officer Capt. William Brennan (Frank Gerstle) who never believed the chargers against him, agrees to help Whitey in his continuing efforts to bring down boss racketeer Vince Malone (Brad Dexter).
You see a long time ago Brandon's sister got mixed up with a group like "The Syndicate" and died because of it, that's why he takes things so personal and can't be corrupted. The famously incorruptible Brandon decides to pretend that he's defected to the other side, and is setting up rival "modeling agencies", if you know what I mean. Now the bad guys, who have long experience with the uber-ernest Brandon should know better then to fall for this obvious fake out, but when Brandon continually demonstrates an amazing ability to get the cops to leave his agencies alone while they crack down on Malone's, the racketeers nervous out of town financel backers decide to take there business to the new guy. Oh and Van Doren turns on the bad guys because one of them rapes (and yes they use that word) her visiting kid sister Louise (Carol Nugent), so I guess this means she's redeemed. Disappointing, a surprisingly unsalacious little crime movie. **
The Golden Gong
Nice little documentary gives a survey course in the films produced by the Rank Organization in roughly its first fifty years of existence. You mostly likely know the Rank Organization form its iconic logo of a man beating a giant golden gong. The company was founded by J. Arthur Rank (1888-1972), the devoutly Methodist heir of a substantial flour milling business, who became perhaps the central figure in Britain's film industry for several decades. The Rank Organization, and the Pinewood and Denham film studios it owned are responsible for seemingly countless films, including the James Bond franchise, establishing directors such as Michael Powell and David Lean, and launching stars ranging from James Mason to Joan Collins. This is a fun little examination of the company and its legacy, with a good group of informative talking heads, many of whom are now dead, and it introduced me to a number of movies that I'd now like to see, I'd never even heard of 'The Doctors' or 'Carry On' films. While this doc is obvious a bit niche, and I did find it kind of hard to come by, it was still an informative and enjoyable 76 minutes. **1/2
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