Yuku free message boards

One way to demonstrate objectively three underrated films from the 40s is by looking at which ones aren't yet on DVD. Toward that end, I offer "The Monster and the Girl," "Jungle Woman," and "Jungle Captive" as all underrated by one crucial objective standard. I sure hope they make the next "archive," "vault," or "cult" boxed set from Universal or TCM as they're all terrific in their ways.

Earlier I read from Cool Ghoul that no one was raving about "Bedlam." I'll do it with pleasure. I love that film and think it's one of the best horror period pieces ever put on film. Anna Lee offers a lively, likable heroine with an actual character trajectory exemplifying motivated change. Karloff gets to have glorious screen time in a superb role. Billy House makes a convincing 18th century voluptuary. The film's story is original, thematically coherent, and humane. I'm not sure it's underrated as the Lewton pictures have a sizable following. I'm solely interested in raving about it.

I think the paired scenes of Nell Bowen's trial and the trial of Master Sims inside the institute are two great scenes made greater for their juxtaposition. In the first, lively Nell meets a Kafkaesque tribunal of the sane who treat her unjustly and for reasons corrupted by the sort of self-interest that drags down all institutions. Sims encounters a tribunal of the mad who treat him with compassion for recognizing how a man hurt by the world might harm it in response. The people needing compassion, give it for knowing too well its scarcity. The scene of the gilded boy's death is another profoundly disturbing, deeply humane epigram. It motivates Nell's transformation from self-absorbed jester to crusader against injustice with a quiet, persuasive poetry. It also illustrates the insanity of the sane whose preoccupation with being entertained underscores the moral bankruptcy of power. As a meditation on the pretenses of institutionalized enlightenment, the film anticipates the sensibilities of many message pictures to come.

Finally, and if nothing else can persuade its detractors, we should celebrate "Bedlam" and all the horror films of the 1940s as each plays its crucial role in completing a larger, beautiful picture that is 1940s horror. I love them all and regret only that more horror pictures weren't produced that decade. OVERRATED? None.