Raymond Burr is a lawyer duped in 'Please Murder Me'

Please Murder Me (1954)
Starring: Raymond Burr, Angela Lansbury, Lamont Johnson and John Dehner
Director: Peter Godfrey

When idealistic attorney Craig Carlson (Burr) realizes that he was manipulated into assuring the acquittal of a murderess (Lansbury), he sets about guarenteeing that she is brought to justice, even if if costs him his own life.


"Please Murder Me" has a plot that's reminicent of a "Columbo" episode, with the main character basically harrassing the perpetrator of a near-perfect crime into revealing their guilt to the law. Craig Carlson, however, goes much further than Columbo ever did!

Part courtroom drama, part film-noir thriller, fans of crime movies will enjoy the fact that this movie keeps to a very unexpected course. (You may think you know where things or going, or that a twist is about to put upon a twist, but you will in all likelihood be guessing wrong.) It's a well-acted movie with a creative script that's all the more fun to watch due to Raymond Burr playing the role of a grandstanding lawyer. While the Carlson character is far more faithful and loyal to the letter and spirit of the law than Burr's more famous Perry Mason character ever was, "Please Murder Me" still feels like what could have been an episode titled "Perry Mason and the Final Curtain."

A young couple learns that a life of crime is "The Wrong Road'

The Wrong Road (1937)
Starring: Richard Cromwell, Helen Mack, Lionel Atwill, and Horace MacMohan
Director: James Cruze
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Jimmy and Ruth, a young, down-on-their-luck couple (Cromwell and Mack) steal $100,000 from Jimmy's employer that they intend to live off it once they get out of prison. A private detective charged with recovering the loot (Atwill) believes they are just a pair of desperate kids deserving of a second chance, and he arranges their early parole. As he encourages them to give back the money, a coldhearted, murderous criminal (MacMohan) is stalking them in the hopes of getting the loot for himself.


"The Wrong Road" is so heavy-handed in delivering its "crime doesn't pay" and "it's never to late to reform and become a law-abiding citizen again" messages that it borders on the goofy educational films that were so popular in the 1950s and 1960s (and even into the 1970s, because I remember watching a few...). However, a cast far classier and talented than is usually found in that sort of films, and a fast-moving story that actually has some tension to it makes it better than the educational shorts and film-strips it resembles.

The best part of the film is Atwill's character. Private detective Mike Roberts is almost a proto-Colombo, with his ability to pop up in Jimmy and Ruth's path at just the right (or wrong, depending on your point of view) moment, and his technique of annoying the criminals into coming clean.

Hedy Lemarr makes this film as 'The Strange Woman'

The Strange Woman (1946)
Starring: Hedy Lemarr, George Sanders, Louis Hayward, Gene Lockhart, and Hillary Brooke
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Beautiful sociopath Jenny Hager (Lamarr) vamps her way through early 19th century Bangor, spreading heartbreak, mayhem and murder.


"The Strange Woman" is a predictable period drama that is elevated by its superior cast, and a multi-faceted performance of star Hedy Lemarr. Although Jenny Hager is a textbook sociopath and thoroughly evil, Lamarr manages to make the character sympathetic. Unlike most femme fatale characters as self-centered and manipulative as Jenny, the viewer can't help but feel a little sorry for her when her life starts to unravel when her weaknesses catch up with her.

Another impressive aspect of the film is is musical score. It serves as more than just a mood-heightener, it helps move the story forward by using well-known bits of music (such as the Wedding March or a Christmas song) to show the passage of time. It's a very effective technique that makes sure the film never loses momentum.

If you're a fan of Hedy Lemarr or a great lover of gothic romances, I think you'll get a kick out of this movie.

Forgotten Comics: Electric Girl

Electric Girl, Vols. 1-3 (Published by AiT/PlanetLAR)
Story and Art: By Michael Brennan
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

Here's another excellent series that fell by the wayside, because there is no room in the greater marketplace for comics that feature anything but superheroes beating the crap out of each other and/or profanity. (This review was originally written in 2005. At the time, I was holding out hope Brennan would do more Electric Girl stories. I hoped in vain.)


The "Electric Girl" graphic novels present cartoonist Michael Brennan's quirky series about Virginia and her constant companion Oogleoog. Virginia is the title character, so named because she has the strange ability of emitting electric shocks whenever she feels like it. Oogleoog is a gremlin, invisible to all but Virginia and animals... and, like gremlins are supposed to, he is constantly causing trouble. The stories, ranging from six to fourteen pages in length, skip around in Virginia's life, covering a period from her being five or six to her college years.

"Electric Girl" takes place in a world that could very well be the one just outside your window--well, if that world contained robots who befriend electricity-conducting girls, talking dogs, and invisible gremlins with kind hearts--and the people who inhabit it are believable and probably very much like the people that you and I know.

The stories are light on sinister personages who are trying to capture her and use her powers for evil, or mysterious crime-fighters trying to recruit her for the cause of justice. In fact, the two stories that *do* deal with Virginia as "crime-fighter" or "superhero" end as one would expect them to end if she was a real girl. (No, not with her being tossed in jail, but I'm pretty sure she was grounded for a long time after one of the stories.)

What is most pleasurable about the "Electric Girl" comics is that Virginia is not some angsty outcast with parents who fear her strange powers. Some of the very best stories are about the small problems that can arise from a child and parents trying to cope with Virginia's unique abilities, but they are handled with humor and heart, not teeth-gritting and random mayhem.

The graphic novels contain mostly reprints from the ten-issue "Electric Girl" series, but Vol. 3 contains a significant amount of material that has never seen print before.

Any one of these books is worth its price tag. Brennan's unique art style is a joy to behold, his characters are all likable, and his "comedic timing" on the page is flawless.

For a little more about Virginia the Electric Girl, click here to visit a page at my website where I adapt her and Oogleoog to the classic "Big Eyes, Small Mouth" roleplaying game system.

You can also visit the office Electric Girl website by clicking here. There are a dozen or so "Electric Girl" stories that are available to be read online there.

Too much bloat weakens 'A Cause for Alarm!'

Cause for Alarm! (1951)
Starring: Loretta Young, Barry Sullivan, Bruce Cowling and Irving Bacon
Director: Tay Garnett


A delusional, bed-ridden man (Sullivan) writes a letter to the district attorney's office in which he claims his wife (Young) and doctor (Cowling) are plotting to kill him. As he reveals this to his wife, his weak heart gives out. She has just given the letter to the mailman, and she launches into a frantic series of attempts to recover it, before she ends up being framed by a dead man for a murder she didn't commit.


"Cause for Alarm!" could be an exciting--and even thrilling--little movie, but it is about 15 minutes too long. It drags a bit in the beginning and it sags in the middle. It needed to be more concentrated in order to fully capture the dread of the main character and to drive home the sense of ever-closer doom that is closing in on her as more and more people seem to grow suspicious of her, and she fails in her attempts to retrieve the letter.

The acting in the film is good all around (even if Young's constant hysterics get a bit tiring) and the technical aspects of the film are very well-done, particularly the lighting of the film's climactic scenes. The only problem with the film is its bloated, drawn-out script.

'Little White Mouse' deserved more attention

Little White Mouse Omnibus Edition (Cafe Digital, 2006)
Story: Paul Sizer
Art: Paul Sizer, with pin-ups and shorts (dream sequences and flashbacks) by various others
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

It's a commentary on the sad state of the comic book market that an excellent series like "Little White Mouse" went through two publishers, neither of which completed projected plans, and that the creator self-published the collected edition of the series in the end. It's a sad commentary that most of you reading these words, even those among you who are regular comic book and graphic novel readers, haven't heard of "Little White Mouse", one of the finest sci-fi comic books series to be published in the past couple of decades.

"Little White Mouse" is, on the surface, the story of sixteen year-old Loo, a girl who is stranded on a remote mining satellite that is running on automatic after the crew all died in a mysterious accident. As you read the stories of her struggles to survive and eventually get rescued, the scope expands to examine the impact Loo's presumed death is having on her family and friends, and it continues to widen until we start seeing glimpses of the politics and cut-throat inter-stellar business environment of the far future in which the story takes place. There even ends up being a little time travel aspect introduced (and, as I've said in other reviews, I love time-travel stories!) and ends up supplying one of the most interesting and poignient plot-twists in the book. But, ultimately, the main thrust of the story is about love, family, and how it keeps us together and helps us survive.


Sizer has a real talent for creating likable, believable, and distinctive characters. Like all good comics writers, you can tell his characters apart because their dialogue sounds different--and in some cases, he makes a character so distinct that one can almost hear their voices while reading... Loo, Pasqual (a mysterious "ghost" who is marooned on the satellite with her) and "Filthy Jake" Armani (Loo's friend and protector, whose rough exterior hides a loyal soul and generous heart) are particuarly well-written.

On the art-front, Sizer's style is distinctive, but a little rough around the edges and a bit inconsistent quality-wise. As with most young artists, you can see his style evolve and change as the series progresses, and by the second half of the book, the quality of the art stabilizes and remains fairly high. (The first five pages of the book, a "prologue" thatI think was drawn just for the omnibus edition, are of even higher quality that the end of Loo's adventure, so Sizer is clearly still growing and developing as an artist. And I think he's a talent to watch for as the years unfold.)

There are very few comics where I buy every edition. With "Little White Mouse", I purchased the individual issues (some of them from Sizer directly when I met him at a convention, somewhere... Chicago, I think. I did too many shows that summer to know for sure) as they came out from Caliber and Blue Line Pro; I purchased the collected editions that came out from Blue Line Pro; I tried (and failed) to get my hands on the "Retro-Mix Special"--my comic shop guy told me it didn't exist, yet it's in the omnibus, so he was wrong; and I ordered the "Little White Mouse Omnibus" as soon as I heard it was available. Once I got it, I read the story of Loo all over again, for the third time for parts of it.

And it's as good as the first time I read the early issues in that hotel room in Chicago (or Milwaukee or Salt Lake City... where ever I was).




If you like comic books, or if you just like a well-done sci-fi story, I cannot recommend "Little White Mouse" highly enough. The same goes if you know a girl who likes "manga." Give her something good to read.

I also encourage you to visit Paul Sizer's website by clicking here. It's got a great gallery section devoted to "Little White Mouse," as well as all sorts of information on Sizer's more recent, critically acclaimed projects.

'The Naked Kiss' is interesting but flawed

The Naked Kiss (aka "The Iron Kiss") (1964)
Starring: Constance Towers, Anthony Eisley, Michael Dante and Patsy Kelley
Director: Samuel Fuller
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Kelly, a reformed prostitute turned nurse's aide (Towers), finds her struggle for a new life and self-respect negated when she is arrested for murder and past deeds come back to haunt her. To make matters worse, the chief investigating officer is Capt. Griff, the man who was her final "trick" (Eisley).


"The Naked Kiss" is a startling movie from beginning to end. It starts so abruptly that I thought the DVD might have somehow skipped, but, no... the very first image of the film is a sharp-featured woman beating the hell out of a man using her shoe.

The film's approach to such topics as prostitution and pedophilia is equally startling and shocking, because neither topic has rarely been dealt with in such a realistic fashion--the way the romance between Kelly and millionaire J.L. Grant (Dante) develops and turns out is probably far closer to what the truth would be than any other of the various movie treatments of such, with "Pretty Woman" being the stupidest of the lot--and I dare say that few films even now have dealt with the topics so frankly and realistically.

The realism of the film also helps keep the final resolution in doubt. In most movies, some form of "Hollywood Ending" can be predicted from other elements of the movie--either everything will work out for the main character , or everything will be utterly miserable and everyone dies --but in "The Naked Kiss" is so matter-of-fact that one can't help feel the outcome is in doubt until almost the very end.

The film is far from perfect, however. There are some scenes that are strangely, abruptly edited--such as the one covering the night Kelly spends spends at the house of Griff, and the visits of Griff and Kelly to a "gentleman's club" across the river. There's also a scene where Kelly records a song with the little children who are her patients at the hospital; while this scene is crucial for developing Kelly's character and is a key element in the tragic events that follow, it goes on for too long. These weak points prevent this film from getting an Eight rating.

"The Naked Kiss" is a film that deals frankly with mature subjects... and it does so without lots of cursing and sex to ensure an R rating. It's the sort of movie that all those contemporary filmmakers running around congratulating each other for being edgy and for pushing the boundaries can only dream of making.

'Woman in the Shadows' is predictable but fun

Woman in the Shadows (aka "Woman in the Dark") (1934)
Starring: Ralph Bellamy, Fay Wray and Melvyn Douglas
Director: Phil Rosen
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Fresh from serving a prison term for manslaughter, John Bradley (Bellamy) finds himself on the run from the law after coming to the defense of a woman (Wray) fleeing her possessive boyfriend (Douglas).


"Woman in the Shadows" is a decent little "innocent man on the run" crime drama with a good script and equally good performances by the three stars and most of the supporting cast. (The comic relief character is more annoying than funny, but that may only partially be the actor's fault.)

This film is nothing spectacular, and the characters and storyline are what you expect at every turn, but it's nonetheless a fast-paced, solid bit of entertainment. It's like a 1930s version of an average summer-time action movie or drama. Nothing's going to surprise you, but if it's well-made you have a good time anyway.

'Prison Shadows' done in by weak script

Prison Shadows (1936)
Starring: Edward Nugent, Joan Barclay, Lucille Lund,and Syd Saylor
Director: Robert Hill
Rating: Four of Ten Stars


When boxer Gene Harris (Nugent) kills two men in the ring in two fights seperated by a three-year manslaughter stint in the clink, his trainer (Saylor) smells a rat and tries to investigate.

That's not the best summary of "Prison Shadows", but a more detailed one would give away too much of the plot. Unfortunately, that plot is one that will barely make sense to even the most attentive viewer. It's not that it's overly complicated... it's just that it's dumb, with bad guys that are even dumber. (And they're not dumb for comedy... they're just dumb.)

And speaking of dumb. I think the character Gene has got to be one of the most frustrating characters I've ever experienced in a film. The level of obliviousness he shows to the affection that Good Girl Mary Comstock (Barclay) has for him while he carries his torch for Femme Fatale Clair Thomas (Lund) is maddening.I usually don't mind romantic subplots, but this one bugged the heck out of me.

It's a shame the script for this film is so awful, because all the actors are good in their parts--Nugent is perhaps the weakest of the bunch, but I may feel that way due to his bone-headed character more than anything. He wasn't exactly bad... he was just "blah" when compared to everyone else.

It's Spy vs Spy in this Karloff-starring WW2 propaganda film

British Intelligence (aka "Enemy Agent")(1940)
Starring: Margaret Lindsay, Boris Karloff, and Holmes Herbert
Director: Terry Morse
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

It's World War I. The German high command dispatches the beautiful master-spy Helene (Lindsay) to London to help the legendary German agent Strengler infiltrate of the very highest levels of the British war ministry. But British Intelligence have uncovered Strengler's ring, and they've inserted a double-agent into it. But which of the German spies is truly loyal to Britain? The milkman? The minister's secretary? Or maybe this is a case where the butler (Karloff) truly can't be trusted? Who will carry the day in the game of spy vs. spy double-crosses?



"British Intelligence" is a nice little spy movie with healthy doses of World War II propaganda. Despite its outdated political messages, the film is still fun to watch today for anyone who enjoys spy movies.

The film offers of a steady stream of plot twists and turns as British and German agents and double-agents try to trap and outwit each other. It is is well directed, with fine acting, great lighting and camera work, and no padding whatsoever. The final chase scene through the streets of London as it is being bombed by German zeppelins is very tense and expertly executed.

And, although we might think that Boris Karloff has GOT to be the mysterious master spy Spengler--he's Boris Karloff and the's got that creepy scar--the film is so well-crafted that it proves us wrong time again. Karloff may be creepy in the film, but is he a hero or a villain? The film will almost be an an end before we know for sure!

On the downside, the film starts to feel a little like a "Spy Vs. Spy" cartoon (from the old "MAD Magazine") toward the end, and the ending that I'm sure must have seemed ironic or poetic to viewers in the 1940s feels EXACTLY like the end of a "Spy Vs. Spy" cartoon.

Still, the film held my interest until the end, and it's a nice little time capsule featuring a tight story and fine performances. It's political message might be dated, but it's still a film that's worth seeing today.