As a monster-movie loving kid growing up in the shadow of
Manhattan, most of my Saturday night plans in the late 1960s and early 1970s
were solidly set.That night was
reserved for watching old horror and sci-fi flicks on New York City’s Chiller (WPIX-TV) or Creature Features (WNEW-TV).I don’t recall the latter program surviving
past 1980 – and even then there had been an interruption of some six years in
the scheduling of Creature Features.Though the program would return to the
airwaves in 1979, the 8 PM broadcasts were now a thing of the past.The revived telecasts had moved to midnight
and well into the early hours of Sunday morning.It hardly mattered, really.I no longer watched Creature Features with the same fervor of 1969 through 1973.I was age nineteen in 1979 and found other
(if not necessarily better) things to
do on Saturday nights.
This absence from Creature
Features caused me to miss out on a number of obscure, aging films
broadcast 1979-1980.Among this mix of occasional
cinematic gems with near-misses was a mostly forgotten mystery programmer of
1944 titled The Man in Half Moon Street.I was particularly sorry to have missed this
one: if my research is correct, I believe the film was broadcast only once – just
shy of 2 A.M. - on March 29, 1980.Though one New York area newspaper listing dismissed the film as little
more than a “Moody and marginally interesting tale of eternal youth through
murder,” such lukewarm praise actually piqued my interest.This seemed my kind of movie.And for
some forty-three years I’ve lamented having missing that broadcast.
It has been a tough film to get ahold of: though I’m
guessing gray-market copies could have been found at conventions or through those
“specialty” dealers of vintage VHS tapes from the ‘80s onward.But as far as I can tell (and, please, feel
free correct me if you know better), The
Man in Half Moon Street has never been officially
available on any home video format: not Laser Disc, VHS, DVD or Blu Ray.Well, that is until now, as we near the
eightieth year of the film’s original cinematic release.We have Australia’s Imprint Films to thank
for finally issuing this superlative, region-free coded Blu-ray release.
As in the case of many Hollywood pictures of the day, The Man in Half Moon Street was not an
original invention of the filmmakers: the scenario was actually based on the British
stage drama of playwright Barré Lyndon.Lyndon’s play, published in 1939 by London’s Hamish Hamilton Publishing
House, had first toured Bournemouth, Oxford, Manchester and Brighton on a
two-week testing-sortie in February of ’39.The play would formally open at the New Theatre in London’s West End on
22 March 1939.
Lyndon’s main antagonist in the stage drama, chemist John Thackeray (Leslie Banks), is a ninety-year
old man.One wouldn’t notice the dotage
as Thackeray appears decades younger.This
is due to the chemist having discovered that by combining radium and periodically replacing his aging
super-renal glands with fresh specimens he can retain both youth and
immortality.Of course the collection of
fresh glands requires innocent others to lose their lives to Thackeray’s ghoulish
harvesting.
Over a fifty-year period eight bank cashiers – those with
access to large sums of money - have fallen prey to Thackeray’s criminal doings.Dissolving their bodies in acid baths, the
chemist then steals the cash reserves his victims had been minding in their
bank-telling guardianship.Thackeray
requires the large sums so he can pay a confidant: in this case an
ethically-challenged surgeon friend, to perform the necessary life-sustaining
gland grafts.But Scotland Yard takes up
the case just as the chemist readies to take the life of a targeted ninth
victim for his evil ends.
Interestingly, playwright Lyndon would go on to write
screenplays for Hollywood studios by the mid-1940s, including such moody
mystery-noirs as John Brahm’s The Lodger
(1944) and Hangover Square
(1945).But in late January of 1940, it
was announced that Don Hartman, a dependable scenarist for Paramount, was
scheduled to begin work on adapting Lyndon’s stage play to the big screen.Hartman was, at present, in New York, trying
to finish up his co-write (with Clifford Goldsmith) of The Further Adventures of Henry Aldrich.
That May of 1940, Paramount optimistically announced
there would be no production delays on their twenty-five million dollar film
schedule budget for the upcoming year.This declaration was made “despite war conditions in Europe which
continue to threaten returns” in both national and international film markets.One of the films on the Paramount schedule
was The Man inHalf Moon Street. Early reports suggested that Basil Rathbone was
to take on the leading role. The actor was available to assume the role of
Thackeray as he had only recently completed work on Paramount’s A Date with Destiny (soon retitled The Mad Doctor).
Rathbone had played the villainous role in The Mad Doctor which, despite the intriguing
title, was not a horror film, but a mystery crime-drama.The Los
Angeles Citizen-News would report in June of 1940 that while Half Moon too was not of “bogeyman
classification,” it on the “fantastic side” with its lurid sci-fi angle.In any case, the film project fell
temporarily to the wayside, first due to scripting issues and afterward to the
cranking out of patriotic films necessitated by America’s entry into WWII
following the attack at Pearl Harbor.
But by early winter of 1943, the long dormant Half Moon project was showing signs of
revival.On March 2, 1943 it was
announced in the Hollywood trades that Lester Fuller, recently arrived in Los
Angeles from New York, had been offered the director’s chair for The Man in Half Moon Street.In spring of 1943, Albert Dekker, a Hollywood
“heavie” who recently scared audiences as Universal’s Dr. Cyclops (1940), was announced to assume the leading role.
But on June 15, 1943, Variety
reported that Fuller was out of the Half
Moon project. Ralph Murphy was now chosen to direct.Technically, the pair’s previously assigned directorial
spots were merely traded-off.Murphy had
initially been chosen to helm Paramount’s production of Marseilles, but former stage director Fuller was now tasked to
assume responsibility on that particular film. Murphy was to move over to
direct Fuller’s Half Moon project.
Murphy’s first assignment was a formidable one:he was “to order a complete rewrite job on
the script.”There was also a report
that such rewriting would likely require a recasting of principal characters.Though Swedish film star Nils Asther had been
the latest actor announced to assume the film’s leading role, his participation
in the project was now suggested as being “off” - for the time being, at
least.The film’s producer Walter
MacEwan wanted to weigh casting options “until further developments” in the
scripting of Half Moon were resolved.
The re-writing of Half
Moon would eventually fall to scenarists Charles Kenyon and Garrett Fort. The final screenplay credit would ultimately go
to Kenyon alone who, like Fort, was a veteran of old Hollywood: their work in
the industry could be traced to silent cinema’s earliest days.Fort’s resume for this sort of film was
particularly impressive: he had written or co-written such totemic pre-code
Golden Age Horrors for Universal as Dracula
(1931), Frankenstein (1931) and Dracula’s Daughter (1936). But Fort’s credit on Half Moon only noted his role in adapting Lyndon’s play for the
screen.
The final screenplay drafted would, peculiarly, expunge
most of the ghoulish and murderous elements of Lyndon’s stage play – perhaps
America’s real-life wartime experiences were horrific enough.There are no murders of bankers.The Thackeray character (renamed Dr. Julian
Karell in the film) appears to be already a man of means, an accomplished
portrait artist and scientist.He
attends black-tie, high society, posh parties and conducts his experiments at
an upscale London row house.The film curiously
offers no scenes of on (or off) screen physical violence.
There are no gruesome acid baths in which the bodies of
victims are disposed. The film’s lone “action” scene captures a moment when
Karell “rescues” a despondent medical student (Morton Lowry) from a watery suicide
attempt near the Thames Embankment.Most
scenes of this dialogue-heavy script are set in parlors and sitting rooms –
which, to be honest, really proves a drag on the film’s ninety-two minute running
time.One begins to welcome even the
briefest scenes when Karell ventures out into the shrouded night and pea-soup fog
of the London Streets.Not that much
happens during these interludes, but such moments provide a measure of
moodiness to this otherwise slowly paced non-mystery.
Truth be told, The
Man in Half Moon Street is no detective nor mystery film; we know almost
from the beginning what’s going on.We
learn the handsome and youthful Karell is actually more than one hundred years
old in age.But through a century of
experimentation – and with the assistance of the aging Dr. Kurt Van Bruecken, the
“world’s greatest living surgeon and necrologist” (Reinhold Schünzel), Karell has
managed to stay young through his drinking of a luminous serum and periodically
undergoing fresh glandular transplants at ten year intervals.
There are problems ahead.Following a stroke, the shaky hands of the elderly Van Bruecken are no longer
trustworthy to perform the necessary surgeries.Besides, Van Bruecken has undergone a change of heart: he fears that
Karell is no longer working in the interest of science and humanity in staving off
the aging process.He fears (rightfully)
Karell is now consumed only by his burning desire for the lovely Eve Brandon (Helen
Walker) and selfish self-interest in maintaining a “fraudulent youth.”
“No man can break the law of God,” Van Bruecken cautions,
but Karell is confident if anyone can do it, he can.Even if that means farming the glands of the
suicidal medical student he’s imprisoned upstairs.The other more pressing problem facing Karell
is that his mysterious activities have finally brought him to the attention of
an ethical surgeon (Paul Cavanagh), a cabal of fine art appraisers and Scotland
Yard.
With Paramount now holding what they believed an
acceptable – and mostly non-horrific - script in place, the casting of the film
proceeded in earnest. In May of 1943 it was suggested that young actress Susan
Hayward would play a “featured role” in Half
Moon, though the report cautioned Paramount was still “having a time of it
procuring someone to play the sinister male lead.”The earlier front-running names of Rathbone
and Dekker were both out, and rumors of Alan Ladd’s casting were squelched when
the actor chose instead to sign up for military service.
That same month producer MacEwan confirmed Nils Asther would in fact play the role of Dr.
Julian Karell as earlier rumored.The
trades suggested that it was Asther who, in fact, first suggested that Paramount
pick up the rights to Lyndon’s play and cast him in the lead role.There was some mild press controversy regarding
Asther’s casting.Some Hollywood gossips
dismissed the actor as “Yesterday’s Star” (born in 1897, Asther had appeared in
silent films with Greta Garbo).Though
his character was scripted as someone thirty-five years of age, Asther was in
reality 46 years old at the time of production.Still, there was an acknowledgement that the dashingly tall, slender, handsome
(and rumored bi-sexual) actor “still has a big following.”
Though the actor was to star opposite the sultry Hayward,
the role of Karell’s paramour Eve Brandon was ultimately given to Helen Walker.There would be some delay before she could
join the production: the actress, currently on a wartime U.S.O. tour, was expected
to report to the set near September’s end.Truthfully, Walker doesn’t have a lot to do in the film.She certainly photographs well as Karell’s
doting and perhaps too protective and
morally-blind girlfriend.Even though Karell’s
work is secretive – so much so that it causes him to disappear for weeks or
months at a time – Eve chooses to accept her lover’s “general mysteriousness”
as a byproduct of his genius.I
personally found Brandon less likable and sympathetic as the film progresses.
When it’s finally revealed to her that Karell’s experimentations have brought
harm to innocents, she’s so in love with him she dismisses his guilt, choosing
instead to reflexively defend the “grandeur” of his ambitions.
If the main characters in this picture aren’t always
likable, there’s still a lot to admire about the film.Miklos Rozsa’s moody musical score is
certainly worthy of praise.Henry
Sharp’s fog-bound “exterior” photography is similarly moody, but unfortunately not
up on the screen much.In the final
minutes of the film when Karell dramatically reverts to his actual age,
long-time make-up man Wally Westmore – of Hollywood’s make-up family dynasty –
does his best on the effects.But the
camera cheats the audience of a full on-screen transformation ala Westmore’s
make-up on Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde (1931) – which remains the “gold standard” of Golden Age
horror transformations.Ralph Murphy’s
direction is competent but workmanlike in execution.He creates very little visual tension until
the film’s final scenes and, by then, it’s simply too late.Following the completion of Half Moon, Murphy was planning to move
back to New York City to direct the Broadway stage production of Sleep It Off.
Of course World War II was still on-going, interrupting,
ruining and/or ending the lives of countless innocents globally.In such an atmosphere Hollywood was not immune
to war-time production delays and release date restrictions.Paramount alone had accumulated an
unprecedented backlog of thirty-one completed films awaiting release in early
summer of 1944.There was some confidence
that the tide was turning in favor of the Allies, studios cooperating in the
war effort by rolling out whatever patriotic war films they were sitting on.There was a consensus it was time to empty
the vault of such films.It was believed
that movie audiences would weary of war films following the cessation of
fighting overseas.
There was, at long last, a belated screening of The Man in Half Moon Street held at a
Hollywood tradeshow on October 16, 1944.Variety thought the script was
a “compact and interesting,” the Kenyon/Fort scenario displaying a “few new
twists from the formularized style of long-life mystery tales to keep interest
at consistent level.” But the reviewer acknowledged, not unreasonably, that the
film would best serve as “strong support” to a superior attraction.Other critics likewise suggested Half Moon was too weak to see
top-billing on a double-attraction.
Indeed, The Man in
Half Moon Street (already in U.S. regional release as early as December
1944 although the film’s copyright is listed as 1945 on the sleeve of the snap
case) was featured as the undercard of a double-bill. (On his commentary, Tim
Lucas reveals the film actually had its world-wide premiere in Australia in
early November of 1944).On its U.S.
run, the film was usually topped by director Fritz Lang’s cinematic take of
novelist Graham Greene’s Nazi espionage tale Ministry of Fear.This double
feature actually did reasonably well, the trades citing solid - if not necessarily
boffo - returns as the package was rolled out across U.S. markets and into 1945.Newspaper columnists tended to give the Lang
film the lion’s share of its critical attention, though both films were generally
branded as little more than decent programmers of primary interest only to devotees
of suspense and mystery films.
The critical reviews of Half Moon were, at best, mixed: Box
Office thought Asther’s performance “creepily effective,” with Helen Walker’s
“youth and beauty” making her the perfect foil in a film that offered a somewhat
wacky scientific mad-scientist angle.London’s Picturegoer allowed
the film only muted praise, though its critic admitted enjoyed seeing Nils
Asther on-screen “again even if it is in a somewhat unconvincing melodrama.”As for myself now having finally seen the
film, I have to mostly agree with that 1980 television newspaper I had once
read describing the flick as “marginally interesting.”
Which means I’m still very thankful to Imprint Films for
finally making The Man in Half Moon
Street available to those of us who are fans of even borderline
horror-sci-fi-mysteries from cinema’s Golden Age.But too often the unearthed treasure of a particular
rarity is in its rarity, and not the
actual value of the item itself.The
film is a decent enough programmer of the 1940s, but one can only wonder if the
filmmakers did justice to Barré Lyndon’s more gruesome stage drama of
1939.One of these days we’ll have to
seek out a copy of Lyndon’s stage play to read and assess.Only then can we muse on what was lost or
gained in the transition from stage to screen.
Imprint’s Blu-ray issue of The Man in Half Moon Street is presented in 1080p High-Def black
and white, with a 1.37:1 aspect ratio and LPCM 2.0 Dual Mono audio.There are also removable “English subtitles
for the Hard of Hearing.”There is no
booklet included, nor a chapter stop selection menu (though fourteen chapters
are navigable with your handset).There
are no special features aside from an audio commentary courtesy of film
historian Tim Lucas, biographer of Mario Bava and editor/publisher of the
influential cult film magazine Video
Watchdog.
Of course, a Lucas commentary is always welcome and
informative.Speaking clearly and in an
unwavering measured countenance, Lucas provides the usual statistics we have
come to expect (i.e. biographies, filmographies, Hollywood gossip, optical
effects, Rozsa’s soundtrack cues etc. etc.) concerning cast and crew, both
credited and non-credited.He offers
plenty of thoughtful sidecar discourses as well, including a championing of the
works of the MGM and Paramount studios as every bit important to the
development of the horror film as Universal’s perceived preeminence.
It is Lucas’s contention that the rivals of Universal’s
horror-factory were not properly celebrated due to the influence of
television’s Shock! package of the
1950s.Shock! - with its resurrection of iconic walking-dead monsters
circa 1931-1945 – had introduced a new generation to Golden Age horrors, but at
the expense of the more “adult orientated” thrillers of Paramount and other
studios.But Lucas concedes that The Man in Half Moon Street would signal
the “final curtain” of Paramount’s interest in the horror genre for nearly a
decade.He also recognizes this 1944
film was the obvious impetus for Hammer’s The
Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959).I will
disagree with Lucas on one point: his contention that the screenplay of The Man in Half Moon Street allows
Asther’s several moments whereupon the film’s audience can sympathize with his character’s
desperation.I didn’t get that feeling at
all – Julian Karell come off as a self-centered cad throughout the film.But that’s what makes horse racing.
In the end Imprint’s release of The Man in Half Moon Street allows the desperate – if undeserved - Dr.
Karell to enjoy the measure of immortality he so long labored for.