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| Crazy Knights (1944) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 9 2015, 11:12 AM (315 Views) | |
| Laughing Gravy | Aug 9 2015, 11:12 AM Post #1 |
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![]() Crazy Knights (a/k/a Ghost Crazy) (1944) Dir. William Beaudine ITB Shock Theatre #127 Second of three slapstick features produced by Sam Katzman and starring Shemp Howard, Billy Gilbert and Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom. The presence of Mr. Gilbert inspired an apropos adapted from one of his Our Gang films. Stymie: "Cap'n, we done kind of lost our taste for watchin' scary movies." Everyone knows that the horror craze petered out by the mid-1940s, but watchin' these things in order really hits home that the genre didn't die a natural death, it was murdered by B-movies. Now, granted, these types of films are rarely suited to top talent/budget in the grand scheme of things, but have we really seen a true A-movie horror since Son of Frankenstein five years ago? If Phantom of the Opera and The Climax are all that qualifies since then, well, no wonder people look to B-movies for scares and what do they get? Well, you know what they get, darn it. This stuff. So, Billy and Shemp are in a "haunted' house for the reading of a will, but gangsters are trying to scare people away, and when one of your gangsters in a movie is John Hamilton, you're in trouble. Slapsie is the scared chauffeur in a part meant for Mantan Moreland, I'd guess. A picture on the wall keeps changing faces, just like in Katzman's East Side Kids scare films; Billy makes funny faces, Shemp makes funny noises, and the "ghost" looks like a Ben Cooper costume purchased for 49¢ down at the Woolworth's. It's shame that Universal didn't just try to reboot their series rather than churn out ever-inferior sequels. (The Mummy's Hand is an example of what I mean.) What if, after Karloff left the series, Ghost of Frankenstein featured Alan Napier as Basil Rathbone's brother, making an all-new monster with all new makeup better suited to Chaney? The Wolf Man is a great character, sympathetic yet terrifying, and after the first film and a half they did little with him. Scary films became the equivalent of a fun house ride: you know what you were gonna get, you went for a few minutes of fun and then moved on to the next attraction. William Beaudine directed ten films in 1944. This was one of them. Gilbert is funny in his way, Shemp is, well, Shemp (they go by their real names) and Rosenbloom has almost nothing to do. Maybe watching this in the middle of a marathon of foreign films or great musicals of the 1930s would make it a welcome respite, but watching it in the middle of a group of other mid-1940s scare pictures, it's just a low-budget time waster. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 10 2015, 05:17 AM Post #2 |
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Mouth Breather
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... it's like serials. If you watch a lot of anything in a row it gets boring, which is why I record TCM and don't watch it live. They just showed two movies about John Brown, both with Raymond Massey in the name part, today on TCM. No thanx. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| Frank Hale | Aug 10 2015, 03:03 PM Post #3 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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I always thought apropos (à propos in Frog) was an adjective or adverb. It appears, however, that there is some support for using it as a substantive in English. The OED considers such usage obsolete, the last cite being in 1860. LG, I salute you on your erudition [pause for mild throat clearing]. Oh, yeah the movie. Haven’t seen it. I assume it sucks. Never saw "Seven Angry Men", but I always thought "Sante Fe Trail" was a lot of fun. I would have jumped on that double bill, myself. |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 10 2015, 06:18 PM Post #4 |
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Mouth Breather
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Santa Fe Trail was indeed great fun, and I have Seven Angry Men saved for a time when the story isn't so fresh in my mind. One thing about Massey as John Brown is that they had to get another actor to play Massey's signature part, Abe Lincoln. Custer, J.E.B. Stuart, R.E. Lee are constantly popping up, as well as Stonewall Jackson. It's like a Who's Who of the Civil War on both sides, when they were all younger, and friends. The movie doesn't entirely pussyfoot around the slavery issue, either -- Brown is seen as right, if a bit loopy, which I would call a fair assessment. I did some research after watching and was surprised to learn that the film is at least partly accurate -- unusual in a movie about history. Swell entertainment. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| Frank Hale | Aug 11 2015, 10:20 AM Post #5 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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I agree. And since it played on TCM, it sounds like it might finally have got a restoration. I've only seen 16mm PD prints. |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 12 2015, 02:14 PM Post #6 |
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Mouth Breather
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It looks practically new. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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