From: mleeper@optonline.net   
      
   Comments on the 1945 Retro Hugo Nominations in the Dramatic Presentation   
   Category   
      
   Members of the 2020 World Science Fiction Convention will be given an   
   opportunity to vote retroactively for Hugo Awards for 1945, for works from   
   1944. I am not actually old enough to have been around in 1944. The year 1944   
   was roughly a flowering when    
   fantastic media was seen by much of the public. I am not sure when I started   
   seeing fantastic media from the year 1944 until about 1960, but I do remember   
   the early general public availability of some of the films nominated for a   
   1944 Retroactive Hugo.    
   They had science fiction and fantasy for which the fiction was absurdly bad   
   (but fun) and the "science" contained no science at all. It can still be fun   
   to be misinformed by science from someone who knows less science than you do   
   and by fiction that is    
   just written. There is a certain charm to science fiction written by someone   
   with no obvious understanding of science trying their best to make it sound   
   credible   
      
   Many true fans of science fiction and fantasy still retain an interest in the   
   fantasy fiction from 80 years earlier. Reading it creates an atmosphere from a   
   writing style of decades ago. Few fans delude themselves into believing that   
   this prose eight    
   decades old is true artistry.   
      
   Personally I see only one or two titles among the nominees that say to me   
   "classic." By the time I finish this article you will probably have very   
   little doubt which two are the ones that I consider the true classics. In the   
   meantime I will hint for the    
   reader think about which would the real classic be. Evelyn and I will both be   
   viewing the choice of nominees and independently recording our opinions.   
      
   Enjoy your sojourn to the fun films of 1944. I know I will.   
      
   Long Form:   
      
   CAPTAIN AMERICA (serial): The Scarab, an evil master criminal (played by   
   Lionel Atwill) is manipulating members of the wealthy class with something   
   that has been called "The Purple Death". With it, Scarab can telepathically   
   order people infected with the    
   Purple Death to commit suicide. The Scarab and his minions know each other   
   because they carry a jeweled scarab beetle. (The jewel has four pairs of legs,   
   but scarabs are insects and so have only three pairs of legs; scarabs are   
   beetles and so have six    
   pairs of legs, not eight.   
      
   THE GREAT ALASKA MYSTERY (serial): In the 1940s it was cheap to have and reuse   
   the plot of bad guys being Nazis trying to get their hands on some sort of   
   American super weapon. And what was the weapon? It was usually a death ray.   
   That was a really cheap    
   effect to create. A film is easy to stretch to distort. That gives an   
   impression of melting rock. (I have seen only the first chapter.)   
      
   THE UNINVITED: In the middle of these weak B-movies is a true A- movie   
   classic. It is a film that tells a good story and at the same time has comedy,   
   drama, horror, a good mystery, and romance. Director Lewis Allen has given one   
   of s small handful of the    
   best English-language cinematic ghost stories ever made. (By the rules, this   
   could be relocated into Short Form.)   
      
   The Short Form is for works of 90 minutes or less. However, works of 72   
   minutes or more could be relocated into the Long Form Category. These will be   
   individually noted. Several of the films below are available on YouTube.   
      
   THE GIRL WHO DARED, MURDER IN THE BLUE ROOM, and ONE BODY TOO MANY: Three of   
   the nominees are comedy horror films. A group of possible heirs are met in a   
   creepy old mansion for the reading of a will. One guest is willing to murder   
   to inherit the estate.    
   He may or may not wear a horrific costume to enhance the horror. Perhaps best   
   remembered was 1927's THE CAT AND THE CANARY or its 1939 sound remake, also   
   named THE CAT AND THE CANARY. The 1944 examples of haunted house horror films   
   include THE GIRL WHO    
   DARED, MURDER IN THE BLUE ROOM, and ONE BODY TOO MANY. [ONE BODY TOO MANY   
   could be Long Form.]   
      
   "Sherlock Holmes" Films: Prior to 1944 20th Century made two Sherlock Holmes   
   films, THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES and THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES,   
   both made in 1939. Basil Rathbone played Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce   
   played Watson. Rathbone and    
   Bruce had a screen chemistry that worked and audiences responded to. Universal   
   decided to try using the same two actors in the same two roles, but they would   
   update the setting to wartime. Three of these films took place in wartime   
   England pitting Holmes    
   and Watson against Nazis. In 1944 they made SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE PEARL OF   
   DEATH, SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SCARLET CLAW, and SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE   
   SPIDER WOMAN. Universal would lend Holmes's authority to patriotic speeches   
   for which Rathbone would    
   lapse into rhetoric. Still the films were generally entertaining. [SHERLOCK   
   HOLMES AND THE SCARLET CLAW could be Long Form.]   
      
   BLUEBEARD: This actually was one of PRC's most respected productions. Director   
   Edgar Ulmer gives his settings the feel of a Paris set avoided long shots,   
   setting a film in Paris drives up production costs even if the audience sees   
   only little snatches of    
   what is supposed to be Paris but is really just a few obvious stage props.   
   John Carradine plays the title killer. BLUEBEARD does not really work as an   
   account of a serial killing murderer, but director Ulmer was a talented artist   
   and his work is worth    
   seeing even if it was created for pittance. [Could be Long Form.]   
      
   THE CLIMAX: The previous year, 1943, Universal had cashed in with their   
   Technicolor production of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA with Claude Rains. It   
   offered beautiful music and bright, vibrant color. In 1944 Universal tried   
   that same formula again: strong,    
   saturated colors, semi-classical music, and tissue-light horror plotting. It   
   made an escape for soldiers at war. Universal wanted to see if that same   
   formula would work again. The plot was a combination of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA   
   and SVENGALI. Sadly, this    
   was not much of a success for Universal this time. Probably it was because the   
   film starred Boris Karloff as the villainous hypnotist--an adequate but an   
   uninspired choice. [Could be Long Form.]   
      
   CRAZY KNIGHTS: Five or six incompetent comedians play themselves in a comedy   
   devoid of any humor attempts that work. It is just one more comedy of   
   imbeciles in a haunted house.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)