Mystic Circle Murder aka Religious Racketeers

Mystic Circle Murder aka Religious Racketeers
1938 / B & W / 68 minutes

The magician and escape artist Harry Houdini dedicated himself to efforts against spiritualists and mediums who bilked gullible people out of their money. His widow carried on this work. She appears near the beginning of this movie to warn people away from charlatans who claimed they could communicate with the dead. Skeptics who are interested in the topic of fraudulent mediums and their gullible clients may enjoy this odd period piece. The general public, maybe not so much.

The purpose of this movie is support Mrs. Houdini in her efforts to educate the public. A wealthy steel heiress is prime pickings for a phony medium because she’s dogged with guilt that she was not with her mother when she passed. Helene LeBerthron was a good choice for this part. One of those blue-eyed brunettes with pale skin, she looks young, vulnerable, and hopeful enough to make a con man lick his chops and make us in the audience yell, “Would you please listen to your skeptical journalist boyfriend, already?”

The medium, The Great La Gagge, explains to his greedy partner how to reel in suckers. He says that people want to believe in the uncanny and that they have to be gently prodded to persuade themselves that communication with the dead in indeed possible. The greedy partner works the sound board and the strings that produce the spirit manifestations. Doing so, he always has a coffin nail hanging from his mouth. The constant smoking somehow underlines that exploiting guilt and grief is all in a day’s work for these heartless cheats.

The movie also touches on the psychological manipulation that fakers employ to awe the mark. Like drill sergeants instilling obedience, they have the mark repeat simple phrases of affirmation. Like cult masters, they take marks out of familiar environments and surround them with strange new sights and sounds. They replace the belief systems of marks with esoteric philosophies and mumbo-jumbo. They cynically use distress, loneliness and sexual attraction against the mark.

As I hinted above, this is a movie best for movie fans that have a prior interest in the psychology of persuasion, such as why people believe weird things and how the yearning for the impossible makes people vulnerable to bunco artists. Although the actors do the best they can, more than a little dialogue involves the characters telling each other information they already know in order to bring the audience up to speed. The writing and acting, then, are so-so but, at only 68 minutes in the Alpha Video version, the pace is brisk and everybody keeps their dignity intact.

Swell Night for a Murder

One Frightened Night
1935 / B&W / 66 minutes

A comically irascible millionaire would prefer to leave his fortune to his long-lost grand-daughter. After fruitless searches for the girl, the old buzzard opts to split his dough among types that we are happy to find in a B-movie mystery-comedy. A niece married to a husband with a gambling jones. A ne’er-do-well nephew. A pompous attorney. A staid doctor. A silently disapproving housekeeper. The coot tells them he will allocate a million to each, but his plans and their hopes are derailed when two different women show up and claim to be the missing grand-daughter. Everybody has a motive for the murder that ensues.

The well-differentiated characters are larger than life. Charley Grapewin does a great grouch, gleefully telling home truths; he is best-remembered as Uncle Henry in Wizard of Oz. So does Regis Toomey as the jaunty womanizer who revels in trouble and upset. Hedda Hopper plays the niece, curious since I never knew she acted. Wallace Ford, a magician, gets in good lines and sight gags, but he wearied me with his boisterousness.

Strange that the actors had a hard time placing the word stress in easy words like “tin cup,” “left-handed,” and “imposter.” But they had no trouble with really hard words like “unsullied,” “prestidigitator,” and “legerdemain.”Also curious was when the character wanted to say that the lawyer was just talking in platitudes. Nowadays we would say, “Next he’ll praise apple pie and mother.” Then, it was said, “When is he going to bring in Lincoln and Gettysburg.” Other good lines: “Stick around this morgue long enough and they'll be saying goodbye to you with flowers,” and “Don’t be a bigger idiot than you can help,” and “It looked like something the Devil let loose,” not to mention the deplorable male chauvinism of “A remarkable women. She won’t talk.”

The lighting provides curious shadows. The camera presents tracking shots. The set of the mansion is large and mildly creepy. The pace is enjoyably brisk. The credits are creatively presented on window shades being pulled down. All in all, a clever movie to spend a cheerful hour with.

Go away Expressions

These expressions are done. To make me stop listening use any of the following.

1. "It is what it is."
2. "Good to go."
3. Professional journalists referring to bloggers "who work in their mother's basement."
4. News teases like "You won't believe..." or "Wait until you hear ..." or "You'll be surprised to hear...."
5. "Best of the best."
6. "... is just wrong."
8. "We're really excited about...."
9. "People die/lose their jobs everyday."
10. "It's not over till it's over."

Books to Movies

I think these are good screen-interpretations of classic literature.

1. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James Cain. With Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. Steamy

2. Double Indemnity by James Cain. With Babs and Fred MacStoneFace. Noir at its best.

3. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. With Daniel Day-Lewis and Michele Pfeiffer. Dir by Scorcese. Beautiful period settings, clothes, manners.

4. The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna. With Steve McQueen. Prestige epic: violence plus ideas, what a rare combo for Hollywood.

5. The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham. With Naomi Watts. Superb production values, excellent acting.

Re "movie takes you to the book is cheating." No way for two reasons. Movie versions are often so loosely based on the source novels that inevitably the book is better than the movie on almost every score, plot, incident, believablity of characters and motivation, etc. Second, one right as a reader is the right NOT to have to defend our taste. We avid readers read to develop our own unique authentic tastes and it is not for anybody else to be passing glib judgements on what we read or how we came to read it (or how much we read but that is another thread). Naysayers would sneer at including McKenna, Cain, and Maugham on a list of writers of classic lit, but frankly my dear I don't give a - hey, how could I forget

6. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

Casey Jones

On April 30, 1900 engineer Casey Jones was killed when his engine, under a full head of steam, slammed into the caboose of a freight train. Due to Jones’ heroic efforts, no passengers on his train were hurt or killed. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the US had lots of train wrecks. So many that some people were afraid to travel by train. One wreck that will recall the big scene in the circus movie The Greatest Show on Earth was one in which about 60 circus performers and roustabouts were killed in 1918 near Chicago. Odd story about that is here .

Golden Week In Japan

Today is the beginning of Golden Week in Japan.

April 29 Shōwa Day 昭和の日 Shōwa no hi. This is the birthday of the Emperor known in the west as Hirohito. Folks are supposed to remember the turmoil of the reign, which lasted from 1926 to 1989. I was in Japan in 1989 – I realized that the Emperor had died after a long illness because the Armed Forces Radio was playing somber music.
Many stores closed that day. Those that didn’t were hassled by rightists.

May 3 Constitution Memorial Day 憲法記念日 Kenpō kinenbi. This has been a holiday since 1947.

May 4 Greenery Day みどり(緑)の日 Midori no hi. This is kind of an Arbor Day, when people are supposed to reflect on the importance of ecology and the environment.

May 5 Children's Day 子供の日 Kodomo no hi. This holiday goes back to the 8th century.

Collective Nervous Breakdown

Frickin' country flippin' its lid. Is there any goo-goo, gaa-gaa that won't distract America? These are not from the Weird News Page: this is the most popular news at Yahoo for today.

Balloon Boy

Greedy credulous people get mindless

Trick shots

Uh, bright shiny thing gimme gimme gimme, I want it now, it's mine