EDGE OF DARKNESS (1943)

The small Norwegian fishing village of Trollness (pop. 800) has been under Nazi control for the last two years. The citizens have tried a few small things to undermine the Germans (ruining the canned fish coming out of the cannery, random fires, etc.), but without weapons they have no hope of overtaking the 150 Nazi soldiers.

Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan both live in Trollness and are lovers. Flynn is a fisherman and looked upon as the unofficial leader of the Rebellion. Sheridan is the daughter of the only doctor in town and he disapproves in her involvement with the Resistance Movement. To complicate matters even further, her brother and uncle are in cahoots with the Nazis. Also, the young German commandant of Trollness is a go-getter and wants to make a name for himself by crushing the Rebels once and for all.

If you were expecting EDGE OF DARKNESS to be overly melodramatic and sentimental just because if came from the early 1940's you'd be partly correct, it had a few sappy moments, but at the same time it didn't shy away at all from showing the Nazi's just straight up mowing down town folk with machine gun fire. Also, in the most shocking part of the film it strongly implies that Sheridan was raped (off screen) by the Nazi's!

Good acting, exciting story, nice scenery, plenty of action (and one awesome explosion stunt), a young Ruth Gordon, piles of dead bodies, blood soaked shot of a guy's head after committing suicide with a gun...I say check it out. It's not the most action-packed WWII movie ever, but the story is intriguing and I enjoyed myself from beginning to end. I would love to see a remake or even play a video game version of this story.

Look at how young Ruth Gordon is!

SAN QUENTIN (1937)

Good cast, but the story is as weak as a one-legged kitten with feline polio. The prisoners at San Quentin have been getting kinda rowdy lately so the state calls in a military man (Pat O'Brien) to take over the prison and whip the men into shape. As movie fate would have it, the night before he starts the job, O'Brien meets nightclub singer, Ann Sheridan, and instantly falls in love with her. As he's putting the moves on her, her younger brother (played by Humphrey Bogart who was 11 years older than Sheridan in real life) shows up with the coppers hot on his tail. He's arrested for robbery. And I'm sure you can guess what prison he's going to...that's right wise guy: San Quentin.

On his first day in the joint, Bogart gets into a fight, but tough loving O'Brien makes it a point to reform Bogart with a kind but firm hand. Pulling Bogart in the opposite direction, is a fellow prisoner who wants Bogart to take part in an escape.

With a runtime of only 70 minutes (!!!), you never get a chance to get bored, but the characters are two-dimensional as fuck and the story completely uninspired. In most of his movies Bogart commands your attention, but here he was completely miscast.  People constantly talked about him like he was a child, but in real life he was 38 years old and looked it! At one point somebody mentioned his character was 25!

Very little action, a completely miscast Humphrey Bogart, unoriginal story, Ann Sheridan's hair was too short. Skip it. If you need me I'll be in my room watching I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG.

Shadow of cameraman.