Classic Films in Focus: SUPERNATURAL (1933)

As you might expect from its title, Supernatural (1933) is a spooky Pre-Code horror story, full of restless spirits, murderers, and over the top atmosphere that plunges the viewer into a fever dream semblance of a plot. It boasts notable stars, with Carole Lombard and Randolph Scott as the young couple endangered by a pair of sinister characters straddling both sides of the grave, but, honestly, it's the sheer giddy weirdness of the movie that makes it so entertaining. I can't tell you that Supernatural is a great movie, or even a good one, but I can say that I had a lot of fun watching it, and sometimes that's more than enough. If you're looking for more female monsters to add to your annual round of Halloween classics alongside Dracula's Daughter (1936) and Cat People (1942), Supernatural offers up a doozy with its ghostly femme fatale.

Carole Lombard stars as pretty heiress Roma Courtney, whose twin brother (Lyman Williams) has recently died. In her grief, Roma makes an easy target for sham medium Paul Bavian (Alan Dinehart), who claims that her brother's restless spirit wants to speak to her. At the same time, Roma's family friend, Dr. Houston (H.B. Warner), has a theory about the malevolent souls of evil people remaining active after death, and to test it he conducts experiments with the body of executed strangler Ruth Rogen (Vivienne Osborne). Unfortunately for Roma, Ruth's spirit manages to possess her in order to get revenge on the former lover who ratted Ruth out to the police, who is none other than Paul Bavian.

Pre-Code status lets Supernatural engage in more death, sex, and violence than a later production could have dared to include, which makes it fascinating to watch even when it falls apart as a narrative. It revels in its lady strangler's crimes, trial, and execution, all of which open the picture as a montage accompanied by a chorus of marvelously eerie wails. Later scenes involve onscreen murders with actors really making the most of their death scenes; my favorite is the conniving landlady (Beryl Mercer), whose early demise tells us a lot about her tenant's true nature. We also get some startling scenes of Ruth's corpse in Dr. Houston's laboratory, which aren't gruesome or gory but still not the kind of thing you'd be likely to see after 1934. There's little romance to speak of, as Randolph Scott mostly stands around in a tux like a handsome statue, but the intimate encounter between the possessed Roma and the unsuspecting Bavian is both racy and unsettling. 

Lombard draws attention as the most famous star with the biggest role, especially because horror is not her usual territory, but I'm more struck by Vivienne Osborne's performance as the murderess. She doesn't get as much screen time as Lombard, being dead and an invisible ghost through most of the movie, but when we do see her she really owns the role. She laughs, weeps, and rages with the abandon of the damned, as monstrous in her own way as Claude Rains' Invisible Man or Fredric March's Hyde. We don't often get female villains as unhinged as Ruth Rogen in classic movies, and we certainly don't see a lot of women who compulsively strangle their lovers with their bare hands. Although she started her career in silent films and successfully made the transition to talkies, I've only seen Osborne in one other picture, her swan song appearance in Dragonwyck (1946), and I thought she made the most of a small role there, as well. 

Director Victor Halperin also made the 1932 Bela Lugosi chiller, White Zombie, and Revolt of the Zombies (1936). Lombard, of course, would go on to make comedy classics like Twentieth Century (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936), and To Be or Not to Be (1942). Although Randolph Scott is best remembered for Western roles, you can also catch him in the very weird thriller, Murders in the Zoo (1933) and the 1935 adaptation of H. Rider Haggard's She. Scott and Alan Dinehart both appear in the Shirley Temple picture, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938), while Beryl Mercer makes her own appearance with Temple as Queen Victoria in The Little Princess (1939), a role she repeats in The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939). 

Classic Films in Focus: SHOCKPROOF (1949)

Having already seen and enjoyed both Lured (1947) and Thunder on the Hill (1951), I decided to try Shockproof (1949), the third picture included in the Criterion Channel's recent collection spotlighting the film noir work of director Douglas Sirk. Of the trio, this romantic crime story is certainly the weakest, with a lot of unexamined issues in its subtext and an abrupt ending that prioritizes neatness over credibility, but it's still entertaining enough to be worth watching, especially for fans of leading man Cornel Wilde. Shock master Samuel Fuller injects his trademark style into the story, which gives the movie much of its appeal, and it's fascinating to see the onscreen chemistry between real-life spouses Wilde and Patricia Knight as the parole officer and recently released murderess who falls to his care.

Wilde plays parole officer Griff Marat, whose latest charge is the newly released Jenny Marsh (Patricia Knight), fresh from five years in prison for killing a man to protect her crooked boyfriend, Harry Wesson (John Baragrey). On parole, Jenny is supposed to follow a long list of rules, but she finds it particularly hard to stay away from Harry, even though Griff quickly becomes a romantic rival to the opportunistic gambler. Griff even brings Jenny into his own home, ostensibly as a caregiver for his blind mother (Esther Minciotti). Suspicious and resentful at first, Jenny falls for Griff and wants to extricate herself from Harry's influence, but her attempts only end up turning the lovers into outlaws.

Shockproof arrived near the end of Wilde and Knight's marriage - they would divorce in 1951 after 14 years together - but they heat up the screen when they share a scene. The straight and narrow Griff seems an unlikely admirer for the convicted killer, but Griff repeatedly insists that Jenny is different and better than his other parolees, perhaps because she's also younger and prettier. Jenny is a more ambiguous character in the early scenes, hardened by her prison time and rightfully skeptical of the parole officer's intentions given the extent of the power imbalance between them. Is his attention merely a test of her reformation or a trap designed to send her back to prison? The movie doesn't really address the underlying problems of power and consent here; it's too eager to show us what a good guy Griff is, with his blind mother and kid brother, to stop and wonder whether Jenny actually has the ability to turn him down. Griff, on the other hand, is too sure of himself to suspect that Jenny might be manipulating him for her own advantage or at the behest of Harry Wesson, who hopes to see the moral crusader brought down from his high horse. As Griff relaxes his own code of ethics, Jenny begins to reclaim hers, but their meeting in the middle only creates danger for both.

I don't normally like to spoil an ending, but it's difficult to pinpoint what goes wrong with the movie without addressing its sudden change in tone in the final scenes. Fuller's setup and the actors' performances write doom on the lovers' brows in the vein of Gun Crazy (1950), especially once they go on the run and experience real hardship as they constantly try to avoid capture by the authorities. Griff, his moral code undone by his love for Jenny, has that air of desperation one sees on Paul Muni's face in I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), while Jenny's loyalty to Griff has softened all the hard edges that probably ensured her survival in prison. We've already seen another parolee commit suicide rather than go back to prison in a dramatic moment that highlights the stakes for Jenny should the couple be caught. All of these elements point toward an apocalyptic finale that Fuller intended but rewrites by Helen Deutsch replaced with a completely unbelievable ending that hinges on one of the least plausible changes of heart you'll ever see in a movie. I like a happy ending as much as anyone, but in Shockproof it comes off as phony.

For more from Douglas Sirk, see Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955), or the 1959 version of Imitation of Life. Samuel Fuller is both writer and director for noir classics like Pickup on South Street (1953), House of Bamboo (1955), Underworld U.S.A. (1961), and The Naked Kiss (1964). Catch Cornel Wilde in Leave Her to Heaven (1945), Road House (1948), and The Big Combo (1955). Patricia Knight left Hollywood after her divorce from Wilde, having appeared in only five films, while Alabama native John Baragrey worked mostly in television.