Appointment with Danger (1951)

Appointment with Danger is one of those movies that come along every so often: one from which you don’t expect more than a mildly diverting 89 minutes, but turns out to be a small gem. The cast includes Alan Ladd and some favorite character actors — Jack Webb, Harry Morgan, Paul Stewart, Jan Sterling — that I’d like to kick back and have a beer with. The picture was credited as being film noir, so why not take a chance?

Ladd is Al Goddard, a postal inspector no one likes, sent to Gary, Ind., to investigate the murder of one of his colleagues. He finds that the only witness is a nun, Sister Augustine (Phyllis Calvert). As soon as they meet, you suspect that he will end up carrying an unlightable torch for her, but it doesn’t happen. They are both too dedicated to their jobs for such foolishness. Besides, she’s already married.

She saw only one of the killers (Morgan), but the other one (Webb) thinks she should be killed just to be on the safe side. Goddard goes undercover as a bent government man in order to find out what these crooks are up to, and how to stop it.

The pleasure comes from the obvious fun the cast is having and the surprisingly sharp dialogue, like Goddard defining love as the feeling a man has for a gun that doesn’t jam, and later, a great line perfectly delivered. When the crooks capture the nun, they decide to kill her, then Goddard talks them out of it and one of them turns to her and says, “Sister, you’re either very lucky or you’ve been living right.” To a nun, he says this, and no one onscreen reacts, despite the fact that it’s the dumbest thing they’ve ever heard. —Doug Bentin

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2001 Maniacs (2005)

Writer/director Tim Sullivan knows exactly what he’s doing with 2001 Maniacs: You need only wait maybe two minutes past the opening credits to get nudity, then 10 more for the plot to be fully established. A remake of H.G. Lewis’ infamous, influential Two Thousand Maniacs! of 1964, it unexpectedly plants you on the side opposite of the “heroes.” In other words, you can’t wait to see these assholes get killed.

Said assholes are frat boys on spring break; they’re the kind of guys who see and refer to women only as “pussy.” On their way to Daytona Beach, they and a few other students stupidly follow a homemade detour sign and end up at the ironically named Pleasant Valley, a small town ready to kick off its annual Guts N’ Glory Jubilee. Mayor Buckman (Robert Englund), he of the Confederate-flag eyepatch, insists they stay as the guests of honor.

That’s because, of course, they’re to be the main course of the barbecue for this cannibal clan. Via Buckman’s bevy of busty beauties, the boys succumb to their comely charms, only to end up on the business end of machines of torture. This allows Sullivan to go whole-hog in updating Lewis’ brand of Southern-fried splatter for the gorno generation.

But it’s not without a strong sense of humor, mostly effective, in the same vein as Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever (Roth serves as producer and provides a cameo), and some of it even qualifying as sharp satire on racial and regional stereotypes. If you have an open mind and don’t mind the mess, you’re apt to find 2001 Maniacs mighty tasty — perhaps even finger-lickin’ good. —Rod Lott

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Bugs Bunny: Superstar (1975)

It’s possible to be a movie lover and not like Greta Garbo or John Wayne or Humphrey Bogart, and still retain some credibility — but turn your nose up at Bugs Bunny and hell hath no depth too deep for you, you humorless poseur.

Too harsh? Not harsh enough, doc.

Director Larry Jackson celebrated all things wascally with the documentary Bugs Bunny: Superstar. It contains live-action footage of the cartoonists and their staffs acting out stories before the animation began — Tex Avery was a hoot — but it’s mostly long on cartoons (a good thing) by including nine full-length examples from the 1940s, only six of which star Bugs. It’s short on documentary factoids about the history of the character and the gang who created and developed him in a creaky building called Termite Terrace on the Warner Bros. lot.

It’s this material, most of which is spoken by one of Bugs’ papas, Bob Clampett, that generated some hurt feelings when this film was released. Co-creators Avery and Friz Freleng are also interviewed, and while Clampett had complimentary things to say about Chuck Jones, Jones — who could nurse a grudge like Silas Marner could nurse a nickel — accused Clampett of being a credit hog. The thing is, when this picture was made, almost everyone from the days of classic animation was looking for credit for the work he’d done for hire in the 1930s-1950s, so a lot of exaggeration was going around.

But you can ignore this backstory and enjoy the film for the comedy it contains. Especially fun are the undeniable classics The Wild Hare (1940), A Corny Concerto (1943), My Favorite Duck (1942) and Hair-Raising Hare (1946). The movie is narrated by an obviously-in-on-the-joke Orson Welles. —Doug Bentin

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