(no subject)

[moon_custafer]

 As you may have noticed, I’ve been obsessing for the past few weeks over Testament of Doctor Mabuse (1933), so 
I asked Andrew this afternoon if we could watch it. We had to wait for the sun to change angles before we used the tv screen, and in the meantime he found a YouTube channel of pre-Code stuff, so while we waited we watched Vampire Bat (1933) and The Most Dangerous Game (1932).

I preferred the former — it had Dwight (“how did this actor come out of the American and not the German film industry?”) Frye as a wrongly suspected misfit, not enough Melvyn Douglas as a sceptical police investigator, and Andrew commented that Lionel Atwill would have been perfect if Hollywood had ever tried making a Dr. Mabuse film. Most Dangerous Game I was less into, although it had beautiful RKO jungle and Robert Armstrong — later Carl Denham in King Kong — as a “guest” it’s probably unsporting of Count Zaroff to hunt, given how drunk he is the entire time we know him (I kept hoping it would turn out he was playing the fool deliberately to throw Zaroff off, but no suck luck).

Mabuse was awesome as ever. Andrew has a theory that Mabuse, as a master hypnotist, deliberately embedded some kind of subliminal suggestions or language-virus in his writings, and that’s how he gained control over Baum’s mind, which seems like a pretty good explanation to me.

I’d forgotten the bit where Lohmann talks down a bunch of armed gangsters holed up in an apartment through sheer force of personality — at the time I thought “he’s his own good cop/bad cop,” and then afterwards I thought “did he just... daddy-dom a bunch of crooks into turning themselves in?” Answer: Yes. Yes he did. Kent and Lili decide to go to Lohmann with their information because he was the one who arrested Kent years ago and Kent respects him for that. Lohmann, y’all!

Comments

[sovay]

Dwight (“how did this actor come out of the American and not the German film industry?”) Frye as a wrongly suspected misfit

Okay, I'll watch that.

Most Dangerous Game I was less into, although it had beautiful RKO jungle and Robert Armstrong — later Carl Denham in King Kong — as a “guest” it’s probably unsporting of Count Zaroff to hunt, given how drunk he is the entire time we know him (I kept hoping it would turn out he was playing the fool deliberately to throw Zaroff off, but no suck luck).

I enjoyed The Most Dangerous Game when I saw it last year primarily because of Leslie Banks, whom I like almost whatever he's doing and who was clearly having a wonderful time as Zaroff, and because of the RKO jungle, which would go on to star in King Kong.

I have not yet seen The Testament of Dr. Mabuse and this is obviously a failing.