The Invisible Agent - 1942

Next up in the monster list was this little gem. I always have high hopes for the Invisible Man movies.

Frank is the grandson of the original Invisible Man. The Axis powers are working together to try and get the formula from him. Frank escapes and goes to the government, They ask him if they can have the formula, but he declines. He says it would take something major for him to agree to handing over the serum.

Enter the war! I mean, this is 1942, so it wasn't really a surprise. The headlines were screaming about Pearl Harbor. And now Frank is ready to hand over his serum...kinda. He's the only one that will use it. I was so ready to see him dangling from a parachute invisible. And it happened!

Anyway, back to the plot. Frank's in Berlin trying to find evidence of attacks scheduled to happen in America. He makes connections with an old man and a woman who has been getting close to the Nazis. Frank isn't really focused on the goal, though. He plays around at dinner, and the officer leaves before offering the needed information.

Eventually, Frank walks into an obvious trap and starts an epic fire. It's his escape route, and it was pretty genius. Later, he drops off the information, calls the woman and trots off into the night. After a bunch of strange things happen, the man and woman end up in a plane where she just shoves Frank out when he passes out. 

The tricks in this movie were all over the place. Some of them were cool, but others were highly questionable. Anytime Frank was carrying the woman looked ridiculous. Also, why are we casting Peter Lorre as a Japanese man? It took me half the movie to figure out he was supposed to be Japanese. 

Overall, the movie was definitely propaganda. The Axis characters were bumbling fools with the exception of Lorre's Japanese Baron. His acting was fairly decent in this strange mess. I loved the fights. They were the best part of the movie for sure. I'm really disappointed no one cared about Arnold. The Nazis broke all of his fingers, and he's a carpenter. Frank just left him there. Pfft...it's probably because he wasn't wearing a Vera Wang gown.

The movie was entertaining, but I'm not sure it's a Good movie. Frank goes on a super long speech to one of the Nazis about how they'll turn on each other. It was during WWII, so I understand the focus. Also, flak doesn't work that way...Justice for Arnold!

Suddenly, Last Summer - 1959

Another random pick. I also chose this one because of the summary. Little did I know there were so many familiar names involved with it: Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams. Wow!

Violet has asked a doctor to perform a lobotomy on her niece. Last summer, Vi wasn't able to go on vacation with her son, and he died. She tells the doctor her son died of a heart attack, and Catherine came back babbling all sorts of nonsense. Now she's being labeled as violent, and Vi needs her moved. She also wants her calmed by a lobotomy. The doctor meets with Catherine, and he's not willing to just perform the surgery.

It's clear from the beginning that Vi is hiding something about her son. Catherine has blocked something in her memory about his death, and no one really seems to want to know the truth. But the doctor isn't giving up.

I found the acting in this pretty good. I like Katherine Hepburn, and it was hard to see her being something of a villainess. I know what she's doing for sure, but I still liked her performance. I haven't seen a lot of Taylor, but I think she did well in this one. It was strange to not actually ever see Sebastian. He was a shadowy character, and I liked that. Reviews were mixed on this one, mostly because the movie is padded somewhat from a screenplay and some content had been changed.

Overall, this one is going to get a Good Movie! review from me. I've seen a lot of padded movies, and this is on the very low end of it being noticeable. To be honest, I wouldn't have even been able to tell if I hadn't read that. Also, I want one of those elevators in my house - even though I don't have an upper floor!

The Dark Past - 1948

I was scrolling through the Leaving Soon category on Tubi and was intrigued by the summary for this film.

A criminal breaks out of prison and takes a bunch of hostages. One of them happens to be a psychologist, who immediately puts his pipe in his mouth and starts analyzing. There's a woman hanging out with the killer, and she tells the doctor about the killer's nightmare while he sleeps.

From there, it's a race to discover what the dream means and cure him. The doctor believes he can cure the killer, so why not? On the other hand, this dude has killed a bunch of people, so it might be a bit late. I mean, once they capture him, he's probably going to get put to death or just spend the rest of his life in prison. He murdered the warden in cold blood, so I'm leaning toward them giving him the death penalty, especially in 1948.

The point of the movie is that if the doctor had been allowed to treat the killer when he was a child, he may have prevented the whole murdering thing. He's telling the story to a cop who is questioning his choice to pull a criminal from the lineup to have chats with him. I mean the policeman got smacked in the head by the kid, so you can't blame the cop for his skepticism. 

Anyway, I did find the mystery of the dream interesting, and the story itself was cool. I was glad Fred lived, because I was going to riot if he got killed. I liked the dynamic between the killer and the doctor, and I think it was well acted. I'm recommending this one to my daughter who is minoring in psychology. I hope she likes it. Good Movie!

Man-Made Monster (1941) & The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) - Double Feature!

Now that summer's winding down, we're back to our Universal Monsters list. These two were next in line (I've already seen The Wolf Man), and since they're around an hour, we decided to watch them both in one night. Little did I know it would end up being a Lionel Atwill double feature!

In Man-Made Monster, we started off great. A miniature bus wrecks and gets zapped. Everyone died except one man: Dan. He apparently had a carnival act where he messed around with electricity, so he had an immunity. An evil scientist decides he wants to make an army of "electric men." It's a bit confusing, but he keeps zapping Dan until he turns into a blinking head. Dan also has a canine friend, Corky. He plays with the dog until he accidentally zaps him one day. After that, the dog still loves him, but he is wary of being near him.

In The Ghost of Frankenstein, we're back! This time, the monster has escaped death by being preserved in sulfur. The mayor of the village is dealing with rowdy villagers, and he doesn't want to lose the election. So, he tells the superstitious people they can blow up the castle of Frankenstein. This frees the monster, and Igor is there to help his "friend." They get cleaned up and take a road trip to the town where the current Frankenstein has a clinic. The doctor believes he can cure the monster by replacing his brain with one of a good man (RIP Kettering). The monster has other ideas and kidnaps a little girl. He'd like her brain instead. Little does Frankenstein suspect his partner has plans to betray him and swaps patients so the monster gets the brain of Igor. Apparently the vocal cords as well.

These movies were wild. The first one made no sense, and I never understood why his head blinked. Also, why did he kidnap the girl? He didn't act like he was falling in love with her or anything, so that was confusing. The dog at the end was heartbreaking. Poor Corky. And Lionel got zapped to death.

The second movie also made no sense. I was struggling with the whole concept of the monster surviving in the sulfur pit, but when it dried (?), it preserved him. Once he was out, I just had to put it aside. We have the brother of the last movie's scientist and the son of the OG scientist performing brain surgeries where they remove them from the skull, repair them and stick them back in. I'm still not sure why the partner (Lionel) agreed to put Igor's brain into the monster. Also, what the heck was up with keeping the little girl!? We had a whole mob coming to the house because they were upset about the little girl, but she was safe upstairs at the house the whole time. Why hadn't Frankenstein's daughter taken her back home?! Oh - and Lionel got zapped to death.

These movies are infuriating and fun at the same time. I was so amused at the similarities between these two, especially when it came to the fainting women and the boyfriends. I peeked at the list, and this isn't the last I've seen of Frankenstein, but since it's Igor's brain, and he's super irritating, I don't mind when they try to kill him now. The electric man thing was just weird, and the dog was the best part. These were entertaining to me, but I wouldn't sit down and watch them again with people I care about.

Christmas Getaway - 2017

It was our last movie night before taking my daughter back to college. We got out our bingo cards and started the movie.

A travel writer is trying to experience an "old-fashioned" Christmas, aka a normal Christmas, because she hasn't had one in many years. She's always traveling. She ends up in a small town where she meets a man with a daughter. I don't remember anyone's names, and I don't really care enough to look it up.

The woman was irritating. She couldn't pass up a chance to mention somewhere she'd been. I joked that if you took a shot every time she mentioned a place she'd been, you'd die. When she was "experiencing" Christmas, she was so focused on the pictures, she was posing and asking the child to take the photos. She also entertained the child by sitting her down with an iPad slideshow of her travel photos...wow.

Anyway, the woman feels like she might be ready to settle down, and the man is ready to love again now that he's done mourning his dead wife. It hasn't been that long since I watched it, but the movie didn't make much of an impression on me. The only thing I remember for sure is the scene where we heard an airplane noise, and when people looked out the window, someone had just driven up.

We got some bingos out of the movie, but that's probably the only positive thing I can say about this movie. It was pretty cookie cutter, and nothing really helped it stand out from the others.