The Dark Tower

Nothing else on TV so found myself watching The Dark Tower on TCM. I found myself drawn into this, despite what seems to be clichés (but really weren't when the film was made). Well worth watching.

As a Doctor Who fan from way back when, what a thrill to have the original Doctor, William Hartnell (billed as Bill Hartnell) playing Jim.

I won't recount the story, but I really liked the peripheral characters especially the "naysayer" Annie Oakley woman. Most of the circus stuff was faked but there were some real gems worth watching. There is a wonderful sequence with a "clown" tightrope walker which I defy you to find better -- I was riveted to his performance.

Put it on your list of things to watch.

Financially strapped circus manager Ben Lyon (as Phil Danton) hires hypnotist Herbert Lom (as Stephen Torg) after the latter helps capture an escaped lion. Fortunes turn when Mr. Lom is asked to use his hypnotic prowess to enhance stunts performed by trapeze artist Anne Crawford (as Mary). Her high-flying partner and boyfriend David Farrar (as Tom) becomes an obstacle when Lom wants to control Ms. Crawford. We assume Lom wants to romance Crawford, but the story seems to stall in this area, just as it gets going. Poor Mr. Lyon is easy to control without hypnotism. Perceptive Josephine Wilson (as Dora Shogun) lives up to her name. The characters and production make it an engaging melodrama.

****** The Dark Tower (10/18/43) John Harlow ~ Herbert Lom, Ben Lyon, Anne Crawford, David Farrar

A curious little movie that deserves to be better known. Based on "The Dark Tower," a play by George S. Kaufman and Alexander Woolcott, which was also the inspiration for the better-known "The Man With Two Faces," it shares little except for its title and the theme of hypnotism with the boilerplate melodrama by the two celebrated Algonquin Roundtable wits of the 1930s.

Well-acted,well-written, well-shot, and well-lit, this motion picture operates on two levels, both of them terrifying. Superficially, it's a neat horror film starring an excellent Herbert Lom as "Torg," a Peter Lorre-type -- a rather off-putting and unhappy gentleman from some Central European country who, while absolutely loathing people, can mesmerize them to do his bidding. Ingratiating himself into a rundown provincial traveling circus in a pre-war England -- think an anglicized "La Strada" -- he makes himself indispensable, turning around the fortunes of this one-lion show.

On another level, the circus can be interpreted as a metaphor for Nazi Germany, with the Lom character standing in for the master propagandist Dr. Josef Goebbels, sans a limp. Every utterance of his drives home this resemblance, as "Torg," morphs from just plain Torg to Mr. Torg to ... Doctor Torg, using his power "to cloud men's minds" to bully his way into a position of power. To draw attention to this subtext, the circus parade features a platoon of uniformed blondes marching with arms extended (are they Sieg Heiling?), and a Col. Blimpish ringmaster who could be a stand-in for Field Marshal von Hindenburg.

This secondary theme isn't all that obvious,and perhaps it may not even exist (as Sigmund Freud himself said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar) but for one viewer it does lift this 1943 movie out of the realm of still another film of fright and frisson and instead, with its unspoken chilling and sinister message, places it in Hell.

Phil Danton runs a struggling British traveling circus. They're broke. When the lion escapes, hypnotist Stephen Torg (Herbert Lom) comes to the rescue. Then they have an idea to hire him. He could hypnotize trapeze artist Mary (Anne Crawford) to do a dangerous stunt.

Herbert Lom delivers good creeps. I can see much better use to hypnotize the audience in his own act. Dress him up like a wizard. Anyways, he needs to stay dark for the horror aspect. He needs to be the phantom of the circus. This could be a good horror movie, but it keeps pushing towards melodrama. The horror aspect of the story gets lost.

Enjoyed this British film which is about a Circus called the Danton Empire Circus which is having some financial problems and has to create some new acts in order to keep in business. A drifter, Stephen Torg, (Herbert Lom) appears one day and is able to calm a lion which has broken loose and out of control around the circus grounds. Stephen is looking for work and is hired by the circus manager and meets up with Mary, (Ann Crawford) who is a high wire artist and her partner Phil Danton. Stephen Torg uses hypnosis on Mary and permits her to take some very daring tricks on the high wire act and it becomes an instant success. Stephen becomes very popular with the audiences and is very resented by the circus company, however, Mary is in his complete control and he steals her from her boyfriend Phil Danton. Great entertaining film, don't miss this one. Enjoy.