Corridors of Blood

Corridors of Blood is a black and white film made in 1959. It was directed by Robert Day and stars Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee. It is a Criterion Collection film and can be found in the Monsters and Madmen boxed set.

Dr. Thomas Bolton, played by Karloff, is a surgeon in 1840s London. This is before general anesthesia, and surgery was performed without anesthesia. Bolton's dream is to find a way to make surgery painless. The movie is a concoction of horrific ingredients that follow Bolton in his noble quest: human experimentation, drug addiction, body stealing, extortion, brief scenes of surgery, with the patient fully awake during the procedure, and murder.

I did not know what to expect from the movie. Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee usually make me think of horror flicks. The movie did not go in the direction I expected and was all the better for it. It is not a traditional horror movie with a lurching or seductive monster. All the cutting (slashing) is done in the operating theatre, and there is the true horror, surgery and amputation without the benefit of any anesthesia or pain killer. I don't know much about medical or surgical history, so I do not know how accurate those scenes are, or how these surgeries were performed. Bolton was experimenting with several chemicals that we know dull pain, so it is probable that historically these chemicals were used as pain suppressants, but I just don't know without looking it up. And historical accuracy is beside the point of this movie anyway.

If you are like me, and you only know Karloff from his monster movies, give this one a watch. The heroes have faults, the villains are truly villainous, and the side characters are humans with good points and bad. Not at all what I expected from a Boris Karloff movie.

A Colt is my Passports an

A Colt is my Passport is the most recent movie in the Criterion Collection's Eclipse Series 17, Nikkatsu Noir. It is in black and white and was filmed in 1967.

Kamimura is a hit man and the movie starts with him being hired. He easily completes the job, but there are complications when he tries to disappear with his young associate Shiozaki.  The two soon end up caught between rival yakuza gangs. The double crossing involved is reminiscent of A Fistful of Dollars, and the final showdown on a dust blown plain was reminded me a bit of the ending of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.  

This is a gangster movie that really wants to be a spaghetti western. Enio Morricone's haunting melodies from the Man Without a Name series are evoked throughout the movie. I'll say right up front I loved it. I love westerns, I love Morricone's music, and I loved how Takashi Nomura incorporated them into his movie.

Nomura is credited with directing just over 30 films. He first IMDB credit as an actor was in 1954, and latest is 2016, so he has been quite prolific in Japanese television and film.

I Am Waiting

I am Waiting is in the Eclipse Series 17 sub-series of the Criterion Collection. From the back of the DVD case
"Eclipse is a selection of lost, forgotten, or overshadowed classics in simple, affordable editions. Each series is a brief cinematheque retrospective for the adventurous home viewer. Visit us at criterion.com."

This series is called Nikkatsu Noir. Nikkatsu is the oldest film studio in Japan. In the 1950s and 1960s they sought to reinvent themselves by borrowing from the French and American genres and big-screen imports. There are 5 films in this collection. I am Waiting is the oldest film in the series. It was made in 1957 and is in black and white

Joji Shimaki, the owner of a diner befriends a woman, Saeko, who fears she has killed a man. He takes her in, and gives her refuge while they wait for the newspapers to see if the man has died. Shimaki is also waiting for a letter from his brother. The brother moved to Brazil a year ago to buy a farm and will write when all is ready for Shimaki to join him. They take a day off from they diner to go to a boxing match. After the match, their stories start to collide and Shimake is thrown into the seedy underworld of the cities gangster.

This is different from American Film Noir. The edges feel rougher somehow, the protagonist seems more ragged at the edges than Sam Spade, yet is still more hero than anti-hero. It is still easily recognized as film noir. The violence by today's standards is quite tame. It is an important part of the movie, but is only there to further the story. Nothing in this short film is wasted, no throw away lines, no unnecessary scenes. When you are in the mood for an old-fashioned film-noir detective movie I can highly recommend this one.

The film is the directorial debut Koreyoshi Kurahara, who continued to make films into the 1990s. Yujiro Ishihara who plays Shimake was a prolific actor from 1955 into the 1980s. He died in 1987. Saeko is played by Mei Kitihara. IMDB.com shows her career as being from 1952 to 1960.

I enjoyed this movie and will look for others by Kurahara, Ishihara, or Kitihara.

Le Corbeau = The Raven

I found this film whilst looking for horror movies to watch for Halloween. Le is corbeau is actually a thriller/mystery rather than horror, but I decided I preferred this to traditional horror.

The movie is in French and has not been dubbed. It was filmed in France under Nazi occupation and released in 1943. I purposely did not read the film description before watching. I think that sometimes the advertising gives too much away, and I want to watch the story unfold without preconceived notions whenever possible. I did not realize the exact time period while watching the film, but could guess that it was in the 1930s or 1940s.

Le corbeau is part of the Criterion Collection. The only technical problem with the film was the soundtrack. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I think - and this is truly my opinion not fact, that 

they did ot have the resources to clean up the sound in a studio. Other than that the film was beautifully restored. It was filmed shortly after the Germans occupied France by a German film company. After the war is was banned in France, until 1947.

The story is about people in a small town who start receiving letters from Le corbeau. The handwriting is distinct and in all capital letters. The missives accuse the recipients of various misdeeds, some real and some imagined, and threatens to expose these transgressions to the rest of the town.

Of course no one wants their misdeeds exposed, so a search is on for Le corbeau. There are of course many suspects to choose from. Is it the nurse who disapproves of her sister's friendship with the handsome young doctor? Perhaps the sister of the grade school headmaster, or even the headmaster himself? What about that man in the post office who bought all those stamps? Then there is the handsome young doctor, or the daughter of the school headmaster. 

Under Nazi occupation, people were encouraged to report those unsympathetic to the German occupiers. I believe the film plays on the fears that people would have in such oppressive circumstances. Could you trust your neighbors, or even your own family?

I really enjoyed this film,, I thought the pacing was good, and the story well written. I can also find unfortunate parallels in today's current political climate that make me uncomfortable and frightened.