#charles van enger

[movie--posters]

[cinesludge]

Movie #80 of 2023: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

[fibula-rasa]

Salomé (1922)  

[letterboxd | imdb]

Director: Charles Bryant & Nazimova

Cinematographer: Charles Van Enger

Performer: Nazimova

Art Director & Costume Designer: Natacha Rambova (inspired by Aubrey Beardsley's Salomé illustrations)

[thewarmestplacetohide]

Dread by the Decade: Ghost Catchers

👻 You can support me on Ko-fi! ❤️

½

Plot: Two night club owners try to help their new neighbors deal with a ghost.

Review: Packed with weak slapstick, overlong dance numbers, and poorly delivered jokes, this charmless comedy is a chore to endure.

Year: 1944 Genre: Horror Comedy, Ghosts Country: United States Language: English Runtime: 1 hour 8 minutes

Director: Edward F. Cline Writers: Edmond L. Hartman, Elwood Ullman Cinematographer: Charles Van Enger Editor: Arthur Hilton Composer: Edward Ward Cast: Ole Olsen, Chic Johnson, Leo Carrillo, Gloria Jean, Martha O'Driscoll

-----

Story: 1/5 - Horrid. A bizarre series of barely connected musical numbers sandwiched between a bland plot and unfunny jokes.

Performances: 1/5 - Johnson and Olsen are so void of the personality and timing necessary for comedy it's almost fascinating.

Cinematography: 2/5

Editing: 2/5 - They get points for trying to use fast cuts to make the party scene dizzying, but it's all sloppy.

Music: 2/5 - Ranges from passable to outright bad.

Choreography & Stunts: 3/5 - Fun swing dancing.

Effects & Props: 3/5 - Some cheap, albeit cute, wire tricks.

Sets: 3/5

Costumes, Hair, & Make-Up: 2.5/5 - Fine. Nothing memorable.

Trigger Warnings:

Ableist jokes about people with dwarfism

Brownface

[screamscenepodcast]

Our first bonus episode on horror adjacent films features the classic ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, from 1948! The final appearance of the classic Universal iterations of Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, and the Wolf Man!

Context setting 00:00; Synopsis 1:02:37; Discussion 1:16:32

[sesiondemadrugada]

The Masked Rider (Ford Beebe, 1941).

[tvln]

salomé (us, bryant/nazimova 22)

[facesofcinema]

Night Monster (1942)

[suchamiracle-does-exist]

Commandant Oberaertz ponders deeply in I Was a Spy (1933, directed by Victor Saville, cinematography by Charles Van Enger).

[gotankgo]

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948)

Cinematography by Charles Van Enger

Directed by Charles Barton

[byneddiedingo]

Susan Fleming, Jack Oakie, and W.C. Fields in Million Dollar Legs

W.C. Fields and Margaret Dumont in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break 

Million Dollar Legs (Edward F. Cline, 1932)

Cast: Jack Oakie, W.C. Fields, Andy Clyde, Lyda Roberti, Susan Fleming, Ben Turpin, Hugh Herbert, George Barbier, Dickie Moore. Screenplay: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Henry Myers. Cinematography: Arthur L. Todd.

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (Edward F. Cline, 1941)

Cast: W.C. Fields, Gloria Jean, Franklin Pangborn, Margaret Dumont, Susan Miller, Leon Errol, Jody Gilbert, Irving Bacon, Mona Barrie, Billy Lenhart, Kenneth Brown, Minerva Urecal. Screenplay: John T. Neville, Prescott Chaplin, W.C. Fields (as Otis Criblecoblis). Cinematography: Charles Van Enger. Art direction: Jack Otterson. Film editing: Arthur Hilton. Music: Frank Skinner, Charles Previn.

Was ever man so troubled by his hats? Million Dollar Legs and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break bracket W.C. Fields's career as a movie star (discounting his appearances in short subjects and in supporting roles in silent films and early talkies), and both begin with him struggling to manage a hat. It's a top hat in the earlier film, and it insists on having its own way, culminating in a familiar Fieldsian bit in which it rides behind him on the tip of his walking stick. In the later film, it's a straw boater whose lid comes to grief. Fields had crafted these hat tricks in vaudeville, and they remain one of the most endearing aspects of a potentially unlovable personality. Fields always managed to triumph over his own persona: Although Sucker finds him repellent in aspect, the broken veins of his nose and face unconcealable by any makeup artist, you can't help understanding why Gloria Jean, in an odd curtain line, proclaims her love for him. Both films are the apotheoses of the kind of sublime lunacy that emerged from his imagination, the former a surreal take on the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games, the latter an assault on the movie studios that tried (and usually failed) to stifle that imagination. Although Fields was surrounded in both films with superb comic talent -- Jack Oakie, Andy Clyde, Ben Turpin, Hugh Herbert, Franklin Pangborn, Margaret Dumont, Leon Errol -- they are dominated by him, braving it out through all reversals of fortune that may come his way. The greatest film comedians -- Buster Keaton, Charles Chaplin, the Marxes -- were similarly indomitable. The climax of Sucker is a spectacular car and firetruck chase that owes more to the direction of Edward F. Cline, veteran of the golden age of silent slapstick comedy, than to Fields, but we shall never see his like again.

[ncisfranchise-source]

WHILE PRIDE AND RITA PLAN THEIR WEDDING, THE FBI ARRESTS CONNOR AS A MEANS OF GETTING TO HIS MOTHER, AND RITA MAY BE THE ONLY PERSON WHO CAN SAVE THEM, ON “NCIS: NEW ORLEANS,” SUNDAY, MAY 16

“Runs in the Family” – While Pride and Rita plan their wedding, the FBI arrests Connor (Drew Scheid) in connection to the bar’s firebombing as a means of getting to his mother, Sasha Broussard (Callie Thorne), and Rita may be the only person who can save them, on “NCIS: NEW ORLEANS,” Sunday, May 16 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT), on the CBS Television Network.

REGULAR CAST:

Scott Bakula

(NCIS Special Agent Dwayne Cassius Pride)

Vanessa Ferlito

(NCIS Special Agent Tammy Gregorio)

Necar Zadegan

(NCIS Special Agent Hannah Khoury)

Rob Kerkovich

(Forensic Scientist Sebastian Lund)

Daryl “Chill” Mitchell

(Investigative Computer Specialist Patton Plame)

Charles Michael Davis

(Special Agent Quentin Carter)

Chelsea Field

(Rita Devereaux)

and

CCH Pounder

(Jefferson Parish Coroner Doctor Loretta Wade)

GUEST CAST:

Jason Alan Carvell

(Jimmy Boyd)

Callie Thorne

(Sasha Broussard)

Joanna Cassidy

(Mena Pride)

Drew Scheid

(Connor Davenport)

Cara Mitsuko

(Agent Lee)

Anna Enger Ritch

(Kara Vreeland)

Jennifer Van Horn

(Grandmother)

Jennifer Patino

(Agent Griera)

Ezekiel Boston

(Agent Everford)

Justin Davis

(Morgan)

Haris Pervaiz

(Faisal)

Steven Walden

(Officer Roy)

WRITTEN BY: Ron McGee and Stephanie SanGupta

DIRECTED BY: Mary Lou Belli

[thecraggus]

Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) #MonthOfSpooks #Review

It's a graveyard smash as Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) #MonthOfSpooks #Review

Having pioneered the ‘shared universe’ concept by producing a slew of crossover monster movies, Universal decided to go one meta step further and crossover movie genres as well. Tempting Bela Lugosi back to arguably his most famous role as “Dracula“, as well as Lon Chaney Jr as “The Wolf Man” and Glenn Strange as Frankenstein’s Monster, Universal set these fearsome fiends against their funniest…

[fibula-rasa]

Salomé (1922)  

[letterboxd | imdb]

Director: Charles Bryant & Nazimova

Cinematographer: Charles Van Enger

Performer: Nazimova

Art Director & Costume Designer: Natacha Rambova (inspired by Aubrey Beardsley's Salomé illustrations)

[thewarmestplacetohide]

Dread by the Decade: Night Monster

👻 You can support me on Ko-Fi! ❤️

★★

Plot: A man invites the doctors responsible for his declining health to his isolated mansion, where they are picked off one-by-one.

Review: Despite decent aesthetics, this film's horror is too sparse and its pace too dry to make up for its rather silly main idea.

Year: 1942 Genre: Supernatural Horror, Mystery, Gothic Country: United States Language: English Runtime: 1 hour 13 minutes

Director: Ford Beebe Writer: Clarence Upson Young Cinematographer: Charles Van Enger Editor: Jack Otterson Composer: Hans J. Salter Cast: Irene Hervey, Don Porter, Ralph Morgan, Fay Helm, Lionel Atwill, Frank Reicher, Francis Pierlot, Nils Asther, Bela Lugosi, Doris Lloyd

-----

Story: 2/5 - Despite some genuine mystery, it grows plodding, consisting mostly of people delivering dry dialogue before a rushed climax.

Performances: 3/5 - The cast is mostly natural, save for Asther, whose portrayal of an Indian man is laughable.

Cinematography: 3.5/5 - Good atmospheric lighting. The fog shots are surprisingly decent.

Editing: 3/5 - Smooth and coherent.

Music: 2.5/5

Effects & Props: 2.5/5 - Fluctuates between decent and cheap.

Sets: 4/5 - The ornate mansion is lovely and elaborate, with a particularly striking stairwell set.

Costumes, Hair, & Make-Up: 3/5

Trigger Warnings:

Minor violence

Suicide

Attempted sexual assault

Sexual harassment

Brownface

Inaccurate, racist portrayal of Hindu beliefs

Misogyny (uncritical)

Ableism (uncritical)

[screamscenepodcast]

Curt Siodmak and Lon Chaney Jr return in BRIDE OF THE GORILLA (1951), with Siodmak's directorial debut! Beefcake Raymond Burr stars in this Val Lewton-styled Wolf Man remake set in the Amazon!

Context setting 00:00; Synopsis 20:23; Discussion 34:16; Ranking 57:38