Monday, August 4, 2025

WHITE HEAT (1949)

Director: Raoul Walsh

Writers: Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts, adapting the story by Virginia Kellogg

Producer: Louis F. Edelman

Cast: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien, Margaret Wycherly, John Archer, Steve Cochran, Wally Cassell, Fred Clark, (and uncredited cast members) Robert Ossterloh, Paul Guilfoyle, Ford Rainey, Ian MacDonald

In the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Arthur “Cody” Jarrett (James Cagney) and his small gang rob a mail train, killing several men in the process. U.S. Treasury agents, led by Phillip Evans (John Archer), find the body of one Jarrett gang member (Ford Rainey) and connect him to the robbery. To establish an alibi and avoid being nabbed for a federal crime, Jarrett turns himself in for another robbery he arranged to be committed in another state during his mail train heist. Jarrett’s plan is to do just a couple of years in prison for the lesser crime, and then he and his gang can spend the mail train loot when he is released. T-man Evans plants one of his men, Hank Fallon (Edmond O’Brien), as a convict in Jarrett’s prison to try and ingratiate himself with Jarrett to learn where the stolen mail train money is and get the evidence needed to bust Jarrett for the crime. Meanwhile, “Ma” Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly) informs her son that his wife, Verna (Virgina Mayo), and Jarrett gang member “Big Ed” Somers (Steve Cochran) are plotting against him.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

That little tough guy, James Cagney, was synonymous with the gangster film genre in the 1930s. The former vaudevillian made his name acting in such Warners Bros. crime films as Sinners’ Holiday (1930) and Public Enemy (1931). He would also appear in comedies and even get the chance to show off his dancing skills in 1932’s Taxi!

While Cagney became one of Hollywood’s biggest money-makers during the Great Depression, he did not appreciate how he and many other talents at Warner Bros. Pictures were treated. Head of the studio, Jack L. Warner, referred to his stubbornly principled star as “that little bastard.” Gagney would use Yiddish to cuss out Warner, leaving the studio boss to ask others what he was being called. The good old days were certainly a lot more colorful before HR policies.

Cagney had walked out of Warner Bros. more than once. After the success of his Oscar-winning performance in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Cagney decided to leave the studio to start his own independent film production company. After making two films with limited success and a third one that was a financial disaster (1948’s The Time of Your Life), Cagney was enticed back to Warner Bros. for one of his greatest pictures, the noirish crime thriller White Heat.

The movie opens with the mail train robbery by the Jarrett gang and never stops moving. Between Jarrett’s evasions from justice, the treasury agents’ pursuit, a federal undercover man trying to join up with Jarrett’s gang, and the treachery of Jarrett’s wife and her lover in the Jarrett gang, we are all waiting for Cagney’s murderous mama’s boy Cody Jarrett to raise hell settling scores.

At 50 years of age, James Cagney was still a dynamo playing the villainous lead in White Heat. Of course, Cagney was not only the biggest star in the film but also returning to a gangster role of the type that had earned him his early success. Cagney tweaked his role to be even more extreme. There is not only a flawed morality in Cagney’s Cody Jarrett, but some psychological quirks that manifest as sudden, severe headaches and an obvious relish he takes gunning down his enemies.

The only one in his gang Cody Jarrett trusts is his devoted mother, “Ma” Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly). She has Cody’s back when he is incapacitated by his headaches, and she is all too aware of the treachery possible from the rest of the Jarrett gang. Ma Jarrett may have been inspired by the probably exaggerated reputation of Ma Barker, the matriarch of the 1930s Barker-Karpis Gang. They were public enemies responsible for a series of robberies, kidnappings, and murders.

Virginia Mayo was another vaudevillian that made it big in the movies. By the time of White Heat, she was at the peak of her fame and had just begun a six-year series of films at Warner Bros. As Verna, Mayo may be the beauty to Cagney’s beast, but her beauty is only skin deep. She is introduced as a perfectly made-up gun moll snoring away in the bedroom of the country cabin hideout for the Jarrett gang. She grumbles about her boredom while on the lam, but she provides Cody Jarrett with the kind of fun he needs. However, Verna has been playing up to another member of the gang that is as impatient as she is to live it up with the loot.


Steve Cochran immediately projects unsavory confidence as “Big Ed” Somers. Perhaps his character’s tryst with Virginia Mayo’s Verna was a just reward for Cochran having already appeared in four of Mayo’s earlier films. Cochran’s Big Ed is champing at the bit to take over Cody Jarrett’s gang and girl. Big Ed’s ambition is obvious to Jarrett. The furtive glances Big Ed trades with Jarrett’s wife Verna let us in on their affair. Once Cody Jarrett begins his short stretch in the pen, Big Ed plans to take Jarrett’s place permanently.

The good guys are U.S. Treasury agents trying to nail Jarrett. They are led by John Archer as Phillip Evans. Archer’s Evans is dedicated. Period. His only character distinction is his always-in-control manner and a great voice. That voice may explain why Archer starred as The Shadow on that crimefighter’s radio program from 1944 to 1945. Archer also deserves credit for fathering beautiful actress Anne Archer.

Edmond O’Brien plays the other featured T-man hero in White Heat: undercover specialist Hank Fallon. He assumes the identity of Vic Pardo, a con sent to the same prison cell as Cody Jarrett. It is interesting watching Fallon try to break the ice with Jarrett without seeming too eager. Jarrett is wary of letting anyone get too close to him except his bad ole ma. There is a fair amount of suspense created as Fallon must avoid being exposed as an imposter. Beyond Fallon’s law enforcement objective, we learn nothing about this T-man, either, except that he has an interest in fishing.

I find it interesting that the representatives of law and order, without any emotional depth, are meant to engage the audience’s support. Sure, these T-men do their important duty, but it is the institutions they work for that earn our respect. That is certainly an admirable attitude if the just standards for those institutions are maintained. This was certainly indicative of a post-Great Depression-and-World War II-era mindset, which had reverence for the agencies that should maintain social stability and prosperity.

The real emotional pull for the audience in White Heat is the almost morbid fascination we must have for the conflicts and duplicity within the criminal element. Since this is a James Cagney-starring film, that interest is wisely focused on his Cody Jarrett character. We may root for justice to be served to Cody Jarrett, but we also can’t help but thrill a bit to his remorseless violence and seeing what further actions his trauma may drive him to. This role is a fine example of why many actors find it more satisfying to play villains. Sins are more exciting to perform than virtues; actors can let out their inner animal that social norms urge us to keep caged.

White Heat is usually classified as film noir, yet it is hardly typical of the genre. While it has plenty of crime happening, it is strangely lacking in that crucial film noir element of temptation and moral degradation. All the main characters are established as being either good or evil, and they do not deviate. We are never in doubt as to what any of these characters are after or capable of. Even Jarrett’s unfaithful wife Verna is almost immediately known to us as completely untrustworthy. Jarrett has never really seemed to have much trust or respect for her. Our only surprise about Verna is a reveal of the violence she commits. The femme fatale’s purpose of many noir films is fulfilled here by Hank Fallon. He is the betrayer trying to gain Jarrett’s trust and camaraderie through duplicity. This happens during a particularly vulnerable time for Jarrett, yet Fallon’s moral righteousness is never in doubt, and we realize the validity of his tactics.

White Heat was a financial and critical success that re-established James Cagney as a box-office draw. It has become one of the films always gracing greatest movies lists, and it has certainly influenced many crime-centric films ever since. After watching White Heat, I can’t help but see a bit of Cagney’s Cody Jarrett bubbling up though Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Batman (1989). Some of White Heat’s themes and situations recur and are reworked in Reservoir Dogs (1992). These observations in no way diminish those latter films. They just demonstrate that a great movie can have a lasting impact.

Wednesday, July 16, 2025

CREATURE FROM BLACK LAKE (1976)

Director: Joy N. Houck, Jr.

Writer: Jim McCullough, Jr.

Producers: Jim McCullough, Jr., Jim McCullough, Sr.

Cast: John David Carson, Dennis Fimple, Jack Elam, Dub Taylor, Bill Thurman, Evelyn Hindricks, Jim McCullough, Jr., Chase Tatum, Roger Pancake, Roy Tatum, Cathryn Hartt, Becky Smiser, Michelle Willingham, Karen Brooks, Bob Kyle, Joy N. Houck, Jr., I.M. “Buddy” Brumley, Jr. (uncredited)

University of Chicago anthropology students Rives (John David Carson) and Pahoo (Dennis Fimple) travel down to Louisiana swamp country to find proof of the existence of a Sasquatch. The huge, hairy biped has been sighted for years in the area. Upon arriving in the small town of Oil City, Louisiana, the two students try to get information about the creature that they are after from the reluctant townsfolk. Rives and Pahoo gradually learn more about the local legend and find out how dangerous it can be.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

Creature from Black Lake is a flick that rode the wave of Bigfoot interest in the United States that was kicked off a decade earlier on October 20th, 1967. On that date at Bluff Creek in Northern California, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin were on horseback in a remote, wooded area looking for footprint evidence of the legendary, apelike creature. Supposedly, that is when they were surprised by the appearance of a huge, hairy anthropoid walking upright on two legs. Patterson managed to film a moment of 16mm footage of the creature before it disappeared into the wilderness. Whether a true Bigfoot encounter or a hoax, it is certainly a fascinating bit of film.

           
Frame 352 from the famous 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film

For all of those who want to believe in the authenticity of the famous film footage, there are just as many who doubt it, and several people have claimed to be in on the hoax. Patterson died in 1972, but fellow witness Bob Gimlin has continued to claim for decades that this Bigfoot encounter caught on camera is true. If this was a hoax, it was a masterful one. Someone would have had to go to a helluva lot of effort to make that furry outfit. It does not look like some cheap gorilla suit rented from a costume shop. However, since the supposed encounter was shot at a distance on grainy 16mm film, it is difficult to discern any defects in the costume, if it was just a staged incident.

Because sightings of big, hairy, bipedal cryptids were claimed in locations all over the US, Bigfoot was a down-home spectacle for many independent filmmakers outside the Hollywood mainstream. Throughout the 1970s, various documentary-styled features and fictional narratives incorporating some “true” lore about the mythical monster were lumbering across America’s movie screens. 

Creature from Black Lake is probably the most polished of those ’70s flicks to hop on the Bigfoot bandwagon. None other than Dean Cundy was the cinematographer and worked on the creature makeup. He would soon gain a lot of prestige, especially with horror fans, for his cinematography on such John Carpenter-directed classics as Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981), and The Thing (1982).

Until recently, Creature from Black Lake was a film I had not seen for decades. My strongest recollection of it was the intense trauma my teenaged buddy could have suffered if we missed it. In that pre-internet and pre-mobile phone era, you found showtimes for films in the local newspaper listings. There was no Google searching available and no mobile devices for such double-checking on the road. The stakes were high, folks. Miss the movie that may not be playing for long at your local cinema and you were screwed. You would have to hope it would get a television showing one day that would be even harder to catch. There were no daily multiple showings lasting a week or two on your boob tube. Just one broadcast and then, maybe, a rerun some day in the far-flung future. Most movies were not being released on home video at that time, and home video cassette recorders were not yet widely available. Movie fans really had to have their shit together.

Apparently, my friend assumed that my feces were in disarray. Perhaps he thought that I was unsure of the correct theater where the movie was playing or that the assumed start time was wrong, for when we arrived at the theater to see Creature from Black Lake, the title of the film was not displayed on the marquee and there was no showtime for it posted outside at the front of the movie house. For some unfathomable reason, my allegrophobic friend was going absolutely apeshit about possibly missing a Bigfoot movie. When I suggested that, if we were late for the film’s start time, we could check out the other flick on the second screen, which I believe was Beyond the Door (1974), my punctuality obsessed pal exploded, “I CAME TO SEE THE FUCKING CREATURE!” His rage provoked much hilarity from me, which continued to further incense him, which further amused me. What are friends for?

Much to his relief, we were at the correct theater and at the right time to see Creature from Black Lake. Remember that movie, folks? It is probably the reason you have hung in there this long. Therefore, I will now commence sharing with you my impressions of this film before you hop all over my ass screaming, “WE CAME TO READ ABOUT THE FUCKING CREATURE!”

Creature from Black Lake is rather refreshing because it does not purport to be based on any real-life incidents. It is a leisurely-paced, light-hearted buddy film that gets progressively more intense as the two hapless heroes run afoul of the mean and mysterious creature that they are after in the swamps of Louisiana.

The story certainly takes its time as we travel along with the two protagonists. The anthropology students Pahoo and Rives are on a road trip from Chicago, Illinois to Oil City, Louisiana. They goof around a bit, can tease and occasionally irritate each other, but they are not snarky wiseasses. They seem sincere, and that goes a long way toward keeping us engaged with their quest.

One interesting exception here to many films about city slickers arriving in small town, rural settings is that there is very little animosity between the visitors and the locals. All of the small town residents seem quite decent. Even Sheriff Carter (Bill Thurman), while warning the researchers not to rile people up with alarmist creature talk, does not get portrayed as an authoritarian bully.


The two most familiar faces in the cast would be Western film veterans Jack Elam, as the swamp trapper Joe Canton, and Dub Taylor, as Grandpaw Bridges. Both characters are interesting for their rustic qualities and contribute more anecdotes about their experiences with the creature.

Creature from Black Lake plays out in an almost mundane manner that ultimately rings true. There are no contrived character conflicts and backstories to deal with. The researchers are not armed to the teeth with weapons and technology. Our heroes are just a couple of college classmates of limited means hitting the road in a van loaded with camping gear, a camera, a tape recorder, and a rifle to find a mythical monster.


After establishing the setting and threat early on, Creature from Black Lake seems rather deliberate in doling out the occasional indications of the monster’s presence. This may seem like a narrative necessity to remind the audience that they are watching a monster movie. Rives and Pahoo do spend a lot of time associating with the Oil City locals for research leads, as well as trying to score with a couple cuties (Michelle Willingham and Becky Smiser) that they meet in a diner. This movie’s motive is not to really figure out what the creature is, but to maintain its elusive and mysterious menace. Rationing out the monster action that gets more intense late in the picture gradually adds momentum to the simple story.


Taking a less-is-more approach, the creature is only seen fleetingly, and often that is in the woods at night. This is a tried-and-true technique in monster movies that keeps us from becoming too accustomed to the creature’s presence and helps approximate that fear of the unknown for the audience that the movie’s protagonists are feeling. Fortunately, this only-see-it-a-little technique must have also been effective for my friend. Otherwise, he probably would have demanded to see the theater manager and insist on a refund by bellowing, “I CAME TO SEE THE FUCKING CREATURE!”

Sunday, June 29, 2025

VICE SQUAD (1982)

Director: Gary A. Sherman

Writers: Sandy Howard, Kenneth Peters, Robert Vincent O’Neill, Gary A. Sherman (uncredited)

Producer: Brian Frankish

Cast: Season Hubley, Gary Swanson, Wings Hauser, Nina Blackwood, Pepe Serna, Joseph DiGiroloma, Beverly Todd, Maurice Emanuel, Wayne Hackett, Kelly Piper, Sudana Bobatoon, Lydia Lei, Michael Ensign, Fred Berry, Nicole Volkoff, Hugo Stanger, Stack Pierce, Nate Esformes, Kristoffer Anders, Joseph Baroncini, Tom Brent, Grand L. Bush, Marilyn Coleman, Stacy Everly, Cliff Frazier, Lyla Graham, Ark Wong, Vincent J. Isaac, Cyndi James-Reese, Robert Miano, Barbara Pilavin, Donald Rawley, Cheryl Smith, Richard Wetzel, Jonathan Haze

Ramrod (Wings Hauser) is a sadistic pimp in Los Angeles. He severely assaults one of his hookers, Ginger (Nina Blackwood), who soon dies in the hospital just as vice squad detective Sgt. Tom Walsh (Gary Swanson) is trying to get her to finger Ramrod as her attacker. Walsh convinces Princess (Season Hubley), another prostitute and friend of Ginger, to be wired for sound and entice Ramrod to be her pimp. Upon hearing the audio evidence he needs, Walsh’s team arrests Ramrod. As Ramrod is being taken to headquarters for booking, he escapes and is loose in the city. While the LAPD patrol the city to recapture him, the psychotic Ramrod is hellbent on seeking vengeance against Princess.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

Research for an aborted television documentary on prostitution led to a script for the intense crime thriller Vice Squad. The story depicts one awful night in the seedy world of LA’s pimps, prostitutes, and the law enforcement officers that must confront them. Unlike many mainstream film and television presentations of the time, this movie does not glamorize the sex workers or detectives, nor does it moralize. It presents interesting and extreme situations in a sordid environment and leaves it to the audience to decide how to feel about the characters. The filmmakers just take us for a wild and dangerous ride.

Director Gary Sherman had previously made two very idiosyncratic horror films: Death Line (1972), aka Raw Meat, and Dead & Buried (1981). I had been intrigued about Vice Squad because of Sherman’s involvement and the infamous balls-to-the-wall performance of Wings Hauser as the vile pimp Ramrod. Sherman was not stepping very far away from the horror genre directing such a monstrously evil character.

Season Hubley is terrific in her leading role. We are introduced to her as a loving mother sending her little girl (Nicole Volkoff) off to San Diego to stay with a grandmother. This lady seems to be the perfect picture of domestic, single-parent responsibility. Then, in a grubby, bus station restroom, she transforms into the solo prostitute Princess. She positively struts out into the dark streets of LA to get down to the shady business of turning tricks to make her living. Her carriage and attitude are not from any sense of pride but seem due to a mindset that she adopts to get the job done. Once things escalate into danger, there are still nuances to Hubley’s performance that really work to put us inside her character’s skin.

Gary Swanson plays vice squad detective Sgt. Tom Walsh. He is shown just doing his job with a day-by-day attitude, but he is obviously dedicated. Walsh is probably frustrated by the seeming futility of his job, which comes to a head when he tries to get the hospitalized Ginger to accuse Ramrod of her beating. She is so afraid and dominated by the vicious pimp who assaulted her that she dies without divulging any useful information. Walsh has compassion that seems to be suppressed most of the time, but he vows to make Ramrod pay for his crimes.


A key scene for both Walsh and Princess is when he summons her to help him set up Ramrod for an arrest. Emotions for both characters run hot as Walsh rather ruthlessly coerces Princess’s cooperation, yet he also comforts her as she sobs hysterically over her murdered friend Ginger. The performances build into an emotional collision that has real impact on the viewer and bonds us with the characters.

We have already been shown just how sadistic Ramrod is when he terrorized Ginger. But he seems even more despicable once Princess must entice him to be her pimp to get him arrested. He manhandles and demeans her while praising her beauty to pressure her into joining his stable of hookers. Wing Hauser plays Ramrod as such a cocksure misogynist that we are fully invested in hoping for his downfall. Ramrod is just the sort of fiend that could give pimping a bad name.

Ramrod’s arrest is when things really start to get out of control. Once Ramrod is confounded by anyone, he turns into an unpredictable berserker. After escaping from custody, Ramrod is running on pure rage that drives him through one victim after another to locate the object of his vengeful desire: Princess.

Prior to this film, Wings Hauser was probably best known for his role of nice guy Greg Foster for four years on CBS Television’s soap opera series The Young and the Restless (1973—present). Hauser had visited the set of director Sherman’s previous film, Dead & Buried, and the two hit it off. Sherman says he sensed an inner rage in Hauser that he thought could be channeled effectively into the Ramrod character.

Hauser’s enthusiasm seems evident in his sociopathic portrayal, which is probably what the film is most remembered for. His performance does not contain typical movie villain schtick; there are no clever one-liners and elaborate schemes, just a few threats and very impulsive action. Ramrod is a confident and soulless sadist without any doubts or regrets. Wings Hauser also sings the film’s opening and closing theme, “Neon Slime.” It certainly sets the mood of LA criminal decadence very effectively by having the film’s villain doing that vocal.

As a crime thriller amidst the sex trade, Vice Squad is certainly intense, but it never plays out like a typical exploitation movie. The nudity is fleeting and there is never any sense of the erotic. We meet a few of the johns that Princess picks up, and the situations may turn out to be funny, weird, or upsetting for her. As coolheaded and experienced as Princess is, sometimes even she is taken aback or cheated.

Vice Squad is quite violent, yet there is even more suggested than shown. Why it really registers is because the action is not stylized to an impossibly exaggerated or heroic degree. The violence hurts, people bleed, and there is pain and fright expressed.

The film still manages to alleviate the grim intensity for brief moments with odd bit parts by eccentric characters infesting the underbelly of Los Angeles. There are also two hapless vice squad partners, detectives Kowalski (Joseph Di Giroloma) and Mendez (Pepe Serna), that provide some laughs at their expense.

Vice Squad has all the ingredients for an exploitation film, yet its tone is more sincere without losing any energy. We are tantalized by dangerous and salacious behavior without it ever made to seem appealing. We spend the night on the sleazy streets of LA as all hell breaks loose. There are offbeat characters and situations presented without any character arcs or lessons learned. We can only speculate on the lasting effect of the events upon some of the characters, which is never declared. We are left to sort out our own feelings about this world of vice once we’ve spent some harrowing time on both sides of the law.

Friday, June 13, 2025

THE VAMPIRE BAT (1933)

Director: Frank R. Strayer

Writer: Edward T. Lowe

Producer: Phil Goldstone

Cast: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas, Dwight Frye, Maude Eburne, Robert Frazer, George E. Stone, Lionel Belmore, Rita Carlisle, Stella Adams, William V. Mong, Paul Weigel, Harrison Greene, William Humphrey, Fern Emmett, Carl Stockdale, Paul Panzer, D’Arcy Corrigan

In the German town of Kleinschloss, a series of murders are leaving victims drained of blood. Police Inspector Karl Brettschnieder (Melvyn Douglas) is baffled. He believes the assailant is human, while most of the villagers attribute the killings to a vampire. Village physician Dr. Otto von Neimann (Lionel Atwill) is also seriously suggesting that Brettschneider consider the possibility of a vampire in their midst.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

This film is a peculiar little mix of horror movie influences that creates something quirky and unique. While using leftover sets on the Universal Pictures lot just as that studio was setting the standards for movie horror in the new talkies era, The Vampire Bat goes its own strange way. It also stars the trio that appeared in some of the best horror films of the 1930s: Lionel Atwill, Dwight Frye, and Fay Wray.

The Germanic setting may have been dictated by the availability of some of the Frankenstein (1931) sets that were being used by this independent production. It also puts us right back into the European locale audiences were conditioned to accept as a hotbed for the supernatural because of classic novels and their movie adaptations. The atmosphere is certainly enhanced by those cobble stone streets and old street lamps. The preponderance of bats hanging around town adds to the creepy ambience.

Another ’30s horror film ingredient is the unforgettable Dwight Frye as the dim-witted Herman. Due to his crazed and unsavory 1931 roles in Dracula and Frankenstein, Frye is immediately looked upon with suspicion by the audience as well as the villagers. His habits of taunting the villagers in a threatening manner while laughing fiendishly and playing with bats do not enhance his Gemütlichkeit.

Supernatural considerations conflicting with rational, modern thinking were themes also dealt with in Dracula. This film has a Van Helsing-like character in Dr. Otto von Niemann as the scholar that is quite learned on the history of vampirism. He confounds the skepticism of the inspector trying to solve the crimes.

The Vampire Bat presents us with elements that were already on the verge of becoming clichés in horror films, yet these are often used to misdirect or lead to unexpected conclusions: the ever-present superstitions of the town folk, the town misfit acting alternately sinister and harmlessly befuddled, the mob of torch wielding villagers chasing down their suspect, the scientist trying to validate the supernatural, and a black-garbed fiend creeping across rooftops and invading homes to leave behind bloodless corpses.

Melvyn Douglas, as Inspector Karl Brettschneider, is refreshingly capable as the hero and romantic lead. That is quite a departure from the Universal Pictures template that this film wants the audience to think it is emulating. Brettschneider is both good-humored and dedicated. He is also frustrated at the ongoing series of killings that he seems helpless to prevent in his duties as a police inspector. This makes him instrumental in the story’s conclusion. He is not the helpless bystander that David Manners had to play so often in his Universal-horror-film-leading roles.

As Karl’s girlfriend, Ruth Bertin, the lovely Fay Wray is as adorable as ever and adds a bit of levity and romance to the proceedings. Amazingly, one of horror’s most iconic scream queens never gives her lungs a workout in The Vampire Bat.

Many critics bemoan the inclusion of comedy relief in old-time horror movies. There is plenty of it here in the character of Ruth’s Aunt Gussie Schappman (Maude Eburne). Her comedy is usually on the mark as she is interacting and conflicting with the main characters in amusing ways. Her interaction with Herman is funny and makes him seem quite sympathetic. That sympathy pays off later.

There is another ’30s horror angle that figures into the menace when fully revealed in The Vampire Bat. It demonstrates a bit of megalomania that is the most monstrous thing about the story. We see that an ambition is being pursued at a terrible cost for a goal that, as shown, seems of questionable value. I find this to be the most odd and satisfying aspect of this film. It is truly evil.

A telepathy gimmick is used in a unique and deadly manner, but it is never explained. Frankly, that is a bit lazy on the part of the writer, though I do like its use in the story. Some of the details concerning the blood draining of the victims are also rather vague. Midway through the film we see that process explicitly, but it raises questions as to how and why other victims are found dead in their homes. Did all the victims get dealt with in such an impractical manner?

Overall, The Vampire Bat is great antique horror fun. It has plenty of atmosphere and lots of traditional “horror stuff” that teases the audience before revealing the full truth behind the menace. Star Lionel Atwill, who became a horror film regular during the ’30s and ’40s, has never been better. Fay Wray’s beauty and charm are always welcome. Most importantly, Dwight Frye demonstrates that one’s pets should be adopted from an animal shelter or a reputable breeder. A pet bat may be cheap and conveniently fit in your pocket, but your reputation is bound to suffer.

WHITE HEAT (1949)

Director: Raoul Walsh Writers: Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts, adapting the story by Virginia Kellogg Producer: Louis F. Edelman Cast: James Cag...