Pasty-Faced and Pear-Shaped
Supernatural (1933)
directed by Victor Halperin
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on VHS from Eddie Brandt's Saturday Matinee
Like The Amazing Mr. X, Supernatural employs a sham spiritualist as entry into the glamorous, photogenic world of high-class suckers. But X, if I remember, never compromised its cynical disbelief in ghosts and hauntings. By the end of Supernatural, there is no question of life beyond the pale, or the price to be paid for a trickster's bluff. Technically, the threat is from the soul of the crook's vengeful ex (and again there's an element of unhinged lust to the crimes), but a big focus on the physical act of strangulation puts Supernatural in a long line of Hollywood films obsessed with hands (including Mad Love, The Addams Family, Idle Hands, and the poster art for I Walked with a Zombie), and even further down the list of everyday fools killing the loves that sustain them.
directed by Victor Halperin
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on VHS from Eddie Brandt's Saturday Matinee
Like The Amazing Mr. X, Supernatural employs a sham spiritualist as entry into the glamorous, photogenic world of high-class suckers. But X, if I remember, never compromised its cynical disbelief in ghosts and hauntings. By the end of Supernatural, there is no question of life beyond the pale, or the price to be paid for a trickster's bluff. Technically, the threat is from the soul of the crook's vengeful ex (and again there's an element of unhinged lust to the crimes), but a big focus on the physical act of strangulation puts Supernatural in a long line of Hollywood films obsessed with hands (including Mad Love, The Addams Family, Idle Hands, and the poster art for I Walked with a Zombie), and even further down the list of everyday fools killing the loves that sustain them.
posted by NPK at 7:24 PM
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