Sensation Hunters

In "The Bad and the Beautiful," Kirk Douglas plays a successful producer who fires his director (clearly based on Fritz Lang) because that director isn't goosing up a certain scene. On his way out, the director warns that you can't use the same tone all the way through: you have to build a film with ups and downs, with rhythm and song.

The producer takes over and ends up with a movie that he shelves. It had passion in every scene but no life.

This movie could be that one. Superficially, it has a lot: sexy girls, musical numbers that aren't bad (at least compared to the norm), more or less competent actors (again, compared) and a pretty good setup.

The story revolves around the Paradise Club, where our heroine — a good girl with oafs for father and brother — ends up as a "dancer." A good half of the movie is spent getting us there and introducing the characters.

She is loved by a beginning bandmaster who makes good (in another club) by the end of the movie. But she loves a gigolo who has already been through the club's owner, a strong, sexy blond. He is completely without redeeming value, but all the girls love him. During the story, he hits up his old loves for money until he ditches our heroine, then comes to her for money to leave town with her best friend.

This could have been a noir "Moulin Rouge" where the performance and life overlapped, and you can see that writer had something like that in mind, even highlighting that the second half of the movie could be a dream.

But it has no variation in tone at all. Things start at 35 miles per hour and stay there forever. That has killed this movie, so dead that it is all but unavailable, and I'm the first commenter.

Now that's dead. Kirk would understand.

(This movie is in the public domain.)

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Grim and sour, this well made Monogram noir from 1945 is almost their answer to PRC's bleak hit DETOUR. The three main women in this film are exceptionally beautiful, especially Constance Worth. Lead actress Doris Merrick is the sweet factory worker with the most hideous family who falls for the worst guy in town. She ends up in Club Paradise, which is sort of a casino nightclub brothel, and a crooked pathway to doom. What a sad tale of hard boiled despair. Even her charming and likable trumpeter pal Ray gets jailed for a month, in which she has enough time to go wrong. The sets and costumes are very good, as is the music score. There is an astonishing epileptic set of clumsy tap dance routines, so unexpected and badly presented, it is as if they were shoehorned in to flesh out the running time. They are genuinely 5 star terrible and do not even match the music on the soundtrack. There is undertones of DOUBLE INDEMNITY and well crafted occasional spookiness. The opening is a zinger. However the original title SENSATION HUNTERS is ridiculous. CLUB PARADISE is far better and more tawdry in an appropriate Monogram style. It's pretty good all round, and I would love to see an uncut DVD: the one available has terrible TV commercial hack marks with large bits of some scenes missing.

"Sensation Hunters" (also called "Club Paradise") is a tough movie to love. It's not just that it's a cheap B-movie but the characters are difficult to like or care about in any way. So, while you might understand Julie (Doris Merrick) and her actions, you don't like her or care about the mess she makes of her life. And, as for her family and associates, they're most reprehensible jerks! Not exactly the makings for an entertaining movie.

When the film begins, you see that Julie lives in a family made up of scum. Her mother isn't 100% awful but she's weak and ineffectual. As for her father and brother-in-law...pure scum. So it's not surprising that Julie would want to get out of this home and get a man of her own. But Ray (Eddie Quillan) is a bit of a wimp and although she's been going out with him for some time, she doesn't love or even seem to respect him. Oddly, when an obvious jerk blows into town, Julie is taken with Danny (Robert Lowry). He makes no bones about it...he's been with LOTS of women and has no desire to become tied down with anyone....and yet Julie is stuck on him immediately. He's given her no reason to hope that he's the right man for her or anyone...but she is just crazy about the guy and is a real enabler. Sadly, while NOT entertaining, this sort of situation is rather realistic as often girls from abusive homes often seem to glomp onto losers like Danny. I saw this time and time again when I worked as a social worker and therapist. And, if the film is going to be realistic, her life will be miserable as a result of her poor choice in boyfriends. So what does become of Julie?! Does she somehow make something of herself or make some smart choices?

While the film has MANY strikes against it other than the characters (such as the women who sing in the film...none of them are particularly good), it fortunately does not tack on some nice, sappy ending. The film begins miserable and ends miserable. This makes for lousy entertainment BUT at least is a nice nod to realism. In some ways the film has a real noir sense to it. Too bad that the bad really outweighs the good.

Doris Merrick lives at home and has a job at a defense plant. She wants more, and falls for Robert Lowery. He looks like a big roller at a local club and she falls hard. When he disappears, she goes out with trumpeter Eddie Quillan who tries to impress her. They wind up in jail. Her father bails her out, gives her a suitcase with her clothes and tells her not to come back. She goes to work at the club, and various hard-up relatives come by for money -- she has a lot of crumpled-up $5 bills.

It's a cheap, tawdry Monogram picture, but director Christy Cabanne makes that work in this story of the downfall of a girl, who wanted more and settled for cash. I've been looking at a lot of Japanese movies set in the same, tawdry world, shomin-gekki about poor people in a tough world, and it fits right into that sort of genre. The difference is that in Japan, it was an A genre, with major stars; in the US, with minor actors and actresses, it's set in a world where the big movies are all film noir. Here, it's a cheap and tawdry genre with the directors fallen from once-haughty levels.... and it all works.

Unpredictable little character drama from Monogram. Doris (Merrick) is an innocent young woman from a mean-spirited family, so we begin by rooting for her and her situation. Looking to get away from family, she meets handsome Danny (Lowery). He's an apparent rover with a mysterious past and no apparent job. Trouble is she's beguiled by him even though he comes and goes like the wind. So she takes a job at a shady nightclub he frequents hoping he'll return. Meanwhile, she puts off her old bandleader boyfriend Ray (Quillan), and the more rooted life he offers. Thus, what will happen to her now that she's entered a new, darker world with unknown connections.

The story's told in flashback from an abruptly mysterious opening, while the ending is also abrupt casting a cloud over the conventional happy ending. A distinctive difference in the narrative is the threads we're left to fill in-- such as the relationship between shady Lou (Paiva) and Danny, or even how Danny supports himself. I think this realistic murk tells much of the story from Doris's limited pov rather than sloppy scripting or editing.

Actress Merrick's excellent in her sympathetic role without getting sappy, while Lowery certainly looks the slickster part even if he more or less walks through his role. I did, however, get the several blondes mixed up at times. And get a load of the 40's fashions with their gunboat hats. Still, I wish the nightclub dancing had included some lively jitterbug instead of the stately ballroom stuff. Note too, that no mention is made of the war even though its 1945 and no servicemen are seen among the eligible guys.

Anyway, in my little book, the 60-minute flick is almost a sleeper with a number of unusual touches. And, oh yes, if you're invited to Doris's bilious family for dinner, Don't Go!