Shanghai Express (1932 - B/W) - Dietrich, Anna May Wong and Clive Brook
Honeymoon Adventure (1931 - B/W) - Ealing romcom, nonthreatening Scottish frolics.
Water Gipsies (1932 - B/W) - Basil Dean Ealing romance, almost a typical silent melodrama with sound. By Miles Malleson.
The Sign of Four (1932 - B/W) - Dean produced Sherlock film.Supervised by Rowland V. Lee. Arthur Wontner a distractingly reedy-voiced Holmes. Every adaptation is as good as its Tonga. In this case, forgettable and not much effort.
Lonely Road (1936 - B/W) - More early Ealing, with Clive Brook. Typical Scotland Yarder.
Mummy's Boys (1936 -B/W) - What are Wheeler and Woolsey? You can tell that Eric and Ernie took a lot from them...
Whom the Gods Love (1936 - B/W) - Shonky Mozart biopic from Basil Dean.
Feather Your Nest (1937- B/W) - Surprisingly homoerotic Beaudine-directed George Formby vehicle. Otherwise, typical mix of songs and laboured comedy. He sings "Leaning on a Lamppost".
Cheer Boys Cheer (1939 - B/W) - Edmund Gwenn, Graham Moffatt, Moore Marriott star in baffling proto-Ealing comedy. Instead of Will Hay, we have father of Irish comedy, Jimmy O'Dea (yes, King Brian of the Leprechauns and proto-Mrs. Brown, Biddy Mulligan) doing jokes about drinking (it's set in a brewery) and singing in military uniform. Basically a British take on the moonshine genre.
The Frozen Limits (1939 - B/W) - Baffling Crazy Gang western, set in a very British Gold Rush. More Moore.
The Arsenal Stadium Mystery (1939 - B/W)- Typical quota quickie mystery combined with a football match. As a football-hater, too much football in way of the story.
Tower of Terror (1941 - B/W) - Oddly dynamic horror-war hybrid with Michael Rennie and Movita (post-Mutiny on the Bounty, here capitalising on her celebrity in Ireland and the UK, after marrying beloved-amongst-auld lads Cobh boxer Jack Doyle, hence becoming an Irish music hall act before leaving him and eventually being one of Brando's many "wives"). Weird to have a Mexican as a Jewish German, but it's a reasonably energetic film despite the wooden but imposing Rennie, and a last-minute Nazi invasion.
Backroom Boy (1942 - B/W) -Arthur Askey fills in for Will Hay, and doesn't have his presence.
Went The Day Well (1943 - B/W) - Ealing WW2 morale-booster. Well-done, but post-Dad's Army, hard to take seriously. Got it in a boxset with the similarly sentimentalised Scott of the Antarctic (1948, shot alarmingly in colour), Leansploitation Nicholas Nickelby (1947 - B/W, with an alarmingly young Aubrey Woods) and Dead of Night (1945, which I've never been as fond as some folk, though the ending is 100%).
Warn That Man (1943 - B/W) - Messy, confused Gordon Harker film that unable to decide on a tone, yet has the plot of the Eagle Has Landed, but done as panto.
San Demetrio, London (1943 - B/W) - Wartime Ealing propaganda. Fakes Texas in Ealing. Gordon Jackson pops up as callow Scottish youth, per the era.
The Killers (1946 - B/W) - A well-honed noir, but you know me...
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) - Typical 40s sentimental comedy which serves as a hook to hang on Danny Kaye's schtick. A variety show movie. But it's all one act. Ok.ru.
See also Billy Liar (1963 - B/W). Tom Courtenay's a bit hammy.
Calling Paul Temple (1948 - B/W) - This casual Butcher's programmer is barely a mystery.Has an eye-patched Captain.
Vice Versa (1948 - B/W) - Ustinov-directed rambunctious, annoyingly smug, goofy farce with knowing performances by Newley and Livesey.
London Belongs To Me (1948 - B/W) - Noir Pigeon Street.
Africa Screams (1949 - B/W) - Some nice gorilla work livnes up a silly, dated Abbott and Costello jungle programmer.
Cardboard Cavalier (1949 - B/W) - Simultaneously amateurish and opulent vehicle for the mystifying Sid Field.
Old Mother Riley's New Venture (1949)/Old Mother Riley's Jungle Venture (1951)/Old Mother Riley Meets The Vampire (1952 - B/W) - Arthur Lucan doesn't sound Irish. Or anything else, for that matter. The weird mix of slapstick and pathos is a precedent for Mrs. Brown. Sebastian Cabot plays a Sheik who talks vaguely Hispanic gobblegegook in New Venture, and in African Treasure, a Blackbeard's Ghost-ish Morgan the Pirate. Also watched the play about Lucan and McShane, with an eerie Brian Murphy. Jungle Treasure has Peter Butterworth and Michael Ripper, and cricket-loving well-spoken cannibals who worship a snake god.
Mystery Junction (1951 - B/W) - Odd, seemingly ordinary but metafictional Merton Park quickie set in a train. Sydney Tafler as lead.
Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary (1953) -Strange Talbot Rothwell-written relationship comedy that tries to be American. hence Sid James and Diana Dors doing accents. On dvd with the bizarre My Wife's Lodger, where Dors costars with Leslie Dwyer, but it is actually a vehicle for one Dominic Roche, a broad and obvious farce that oddly seems a satire of grim up north cliches from ten years hence. It has a nice anti-Ealing feel, and a bizarre ending in Texas. Plus future Irish stage doyenne Vincent Dowling is the son.
Meet Mr. Lucifer (1953 - B/W) - Ealing comedy that both celebrates and denigrates TV. Weird to see Jack Watling as a lead. Confused mess of a film. Joan Sims looks as old here as she did in 1970.
Who Done It? (1956 - B/W) - I preferred this to the "proper" Ealings. It has Benny Hill as a Frankenstein's monster-looking mad scientist, at a radio exhibition. And Ernest Thesiger turns up.
Ramsbottom Rides Again (1956 - B/W) - Amateurish Arthur Askey modern-day western set in Canada, a moustachioed Sid James as a bandit.
Trapeze (1956)- Pre-TV excuse for a film. Unconvincing melodrama pads out Burt Lancaster's first love - circus acts. Ok.rued, heavily.
The Horse's Mouth (1958) - Confused comedy. Bizarre performance by Alec Guinness. Is Michael Gough playing a beatnik?
Chase A Crooked Shadow (1958- B/W) - Odd, gaslighting thriller. Anne Baxter and Richard Todd are both unsympathetic. Ok.rued.
Hell is a City (1959 - B/W) - Hammer Manchester noir, attractive but doesn't feel genuine. God cast, though.
Charlie Bubbles (1967) - Albert Finney tries to make Manchester magic in this silly vanity project.
Imitation of Life (1959) - Sirk lovingly creates a world. Not my kind of world, but Juanita Moore is astonishing.
Watched/rewatched the four Margaret Rutherford Miss Marples (Murder , She Said (1961), Murder at the Gallop (1963), Murder Most Foul (1963 - angry young Bolam!), Murder Ahoy (1964 - William Mervyn a decent, sinister villain) - all mostly the same. Can be tiresome or entertaining depending on the mood.
Payroll (1961- B/W) - A typical British crime movie of the era, that bore me rigid. Set in Newcastle. Ok.ru
Sword of Sherwood Forest (1961) - Colourful but aside a changed cast bar Richard Greene, and a bigger budget meaning oddly generic Irish locations in colour, typical ITV juvenile swordplay.
The Man From The Diners' Club (1963- B/W) - Danny Kaye has a credit card. That's the plot. Ok.rued.
Wild and Wonderful (1964)- Typical Universal romantic comedy, set in France, but all done on the backlot. Tony Curtis falls in with a dog that is star of a weird portrayal of French TV.
The Uncle (1964 - B/W) - Somewhat inconsequential and confused but interestingly done kitchen sinker from Desmond Davis, with a solid if unexpected cast - Rupert Davies, Brenda Bruce,
Chimes at Midnight (1965-B/W) - Feels like Shakespeare directed by Jess Franco. Which it is. It's almost Harry Alan Towers-level, despite Welles. Odd cast - Mother Rutherford, Michael Aldridge, Julio Pena, Tony Beckley, Keith Pyott, Alan Webb, Fernando Rey, Norman Rodway,Keith Baxter, Fernando Hilbeck.
See also Welles' Prisoner-esque version of The Trial (1962) - shot in a shade of sepia that makes it look colour a la the green strip placed over Hilda Ogden's telly.
John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! (1965) - Embarrassing American football and Arabs fossil from J. Lee Thompson. Shirley MacLaine dances. Ustinov hams. Wilfrid Hyde-White gives his usual performance despite being in brownface.
King of Hearts (1966) - More bafflement. Alan Bates leads lunatics through a bombed village. I can see why hippies like it. Bought the DVD.
The Naked Runner (1967) - Starring Frank Sinatra, Peter Vaughan (looking shifty in a bowler), and Derren Nesbitt. Yes, that's the billing. Has Cyril Luckham (billed above Edward Fox) as a sinister Northern spymaster with a Roy Barraclough voice. But it's forgettable, mostly wandering about factories. A typical piece of forgettable Frankfroth. See also the Ivan Torseque Lady in Cement (1968), and the Die Hard prequel The Detective (1968), which is a dated noir with lots of waffle about homosexuals, despite having a fab cast - Lee Remick, Jacqueline Bisset, Jack Klugman, Ralph Meeker, Tom Atkins, Robert Duvall, William Windom, Sugar Ray Robinson, George Plimpton as himself.
Taste of Excitement (1968) - Peter Bowles andVaughan in yet another ITC-ish fauxgiallo.
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) - Susannah York is unrecognisable. Lots of tired folk being worked to death in Come Dancing meets Grandstand.
Medium Cool (1969) - Out-Friedkins Friedkin in terms of airless wandering. Ok.ru
Viva Max (1969) - Another ok.ru watch. Peculiar, over-played, oddly French-feeling Disney-esque war comedy.
The Moonshine War (1970) - Feels like the Waltons. Will Geer does his Grandpa Walton schtick. Pat McGoohan tries to break Hollywood.
tick... tick... tick... (1970) - Peculiar blaxploitation-tinged redneck "message movie" version of In The Heat of the Night. Jim Brown wears a cowboy hat as Virgil Tibbs' country cuzzin. George Kennedy is the white lead. Fredric March is the old racist. Like most films directed by Ralph Nelson, it has a country soundtrack.
El Topo (1970) - Hard to say if I enjoyed this. Jodorowsky wants you to be baffled.
The Landlord (1970) - An obnoxious, idiotic young man (when Beau Bridges was the more famous Bridges son) wanders about. and is cruel while supposedly being charming and befriends a minority. Typical Hal Ashby shite.
The Conformist (1970) - Ok.rued this Bertolucci film that although beautiful, didn't grab me. Felt a bit Dennis Potter.
Norwood (1970) - Rural comedy that doesn't work. Far too hammy for a relatively serious story. Everyone seems caricatured, like characters in a sub-Green Acres sitcom. Glen Campbell was a great performer, but not much an actor.
Bananas (1970) - Woody Allen's voice annoys me.
Szindbad (1971) - Sadly not a Harryhausen knockoff from Hungary but a floaty romantic drama.
Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) - Long but with possibly the greatest assortment of British character talent (this and Juggernaut (1974) and Murder by Decree combined), and there are bits where Spain genuinely feels Soviet.
Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman (1971) - Not even Jimmy WangYu livens up this typical blind samurai roter.
Jennifer On My Mind (1971) - A pre-Dempsey Michael Brandon mopes around Venice and New York in this Love Story-for-druggies mediocrity, a tale of rich kids loved up and dosed up. Robert DeNiro pops up unmemorably amidst the mediocrity.
The Todd Killings (1971) - Hippy murder nonsense.
The GI Executioner (1971) -Terrible Oriental-shot schlock.
See also Noon Sunday (1969).
The Anderson Tapes (1971) - Sean Connery when he began the Tony Slattery-look era of his career, so he had to grow a tache. Ok.ru
Taking Off (1971) - Uneasy mix between uber-intellectual parents and singing child brats. Ok.ru.
They Might Be Giants (1971) - A baffling, overtly comic semi-parody of both mental illness and Sherlock Holmes. George C. Scott is decent,but Joanne Woodward seems to be caught up doing a comedy spinster part.
See also The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), which clearly was butchered, but Robert Stephens' Wildean Sherlock is like a Frankie Howerd waxwork doing Shakespeare.
The Seven Per Cent Solution (1976) - It demystifies Holmes. Nicol Williamson is too full-on. Robert Duvall sounds like Peter Serafinowicz as Brian Butterfield. A load of Turkish shag.
The Travelling Executioner (1971) - Another intolerable "funny peculiar - funny haha" hippie western, despite a magnetic Stacy Keach.
Zabriskie Point (1971) - It's like Antonioni wanted to do a Corman/AIP drug movie, but even more smug. A load of arty nonsense. Not even Rod freaking Taylor improves this.
Cold Turkey (1971) - A peculiar and off-putting cross-between Disney comedy, satire and sketch movie. Dick Van Dyke is oddly sexy. Ok.ru
Cry Uncle (1971) - Un-Sexy Troma-ish comedy by John G. Avildsen. Slightly John Waters-ish.
Plaza Suite (1971) - This sort of Neil Simon film is basically a vehicle for the many wigs of Walter Matthau. I can't stand this type of film. Reminds me of Sunday on RTE. Ok.ru.
Made For Each Other (1971) - Obnoxious Renee Taylor-Joe Bologna comedy, sub-Neil Simon relationship rubbing.
Bunny O'Hare (1971) - Baffling comedy with Ernest Borgnine and Bette Davis disguised as Hispanic hippies.
Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971) - Why was this hippyish mystery play made? Did Barbara Harris and Dustin Hoffman just take lots of drugs?
Born To Win (1971) - Bemusing New York drugs nonsense with George Segal, and yet another young Bobby DeNiro. By Ivan Passer, so it has an arty Eastern European feel without the brutalist charm. Lots of Segal attacking people in front of Sudden Terror/Eyewitness playing in a grindhouse.
Sometimes A Great Notion (1971) - Charley Pride sings over this inconsequential rural drama with Henry Fonda and Paul Newman.
Play Misty For Me (1971)- It's not my cuppa. Everyone is unlikeable. Very Rockford Files. Found the DVD in an Oxfam.
Red Sky at Morning (1971) - Richard Thomas in sub-Waltons nostalgia-mundanity.
The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight (1971) - Sub-Disney comedy and DeNiro, plus Lionel Stander and Hervé. It's like if Frank Tashlin made the Valachi Papers.
The Salzburg Connection (1972) - ITC-ish actioner. Introduces Klaus Maria Brandeuer. Barry Newman has presence, but it's a grim drill.
Fat City (1972) - It's supposed to be depressing, but this John Huson boxing film is made even more dreary for me by a Kris Kristofferson soundtrack that reminds me of terrible teenage holidays.
The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie (1972) - Bonnie Bedelia looks like my cousin in this bemusing, confused Spanish-shot western/hostage/car chase exploitation mess.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972) - An overambitious folly. The DVD looks good, but the film feels shallow.
The King of Marvin Gardens (1972) - Oh dear, another New Hollywood roam-about. Infuriating, but Atlantic City looks nice. But a documentary would have been better. The characters don't grab.
Jeremiah Johnson (1972) - Oddly calming western. Great filmmaking, but not my thing.
The Long Goodbye (1973) - Altman doesn't do it for me. I found this tonally all over the place.And quite nasty.
Farewell,My Lovely (1975), being ITC feels like it was shot in and around Solihull, despite being shot in L.A. It's very televisual.
Lolly-Madonna XXX (1973) - Despite a ridiculous cast (Rod Steiger and Robert Ryan as rival patriarchs - their sons including Jeff Bridges, Gary Busey, Randy Quaid, Ed Lauter, Scott Wilson..., Season Hubley as "the girl"), this peculiar hicksploitation about warring families is unclear and confused.
Shaft In Africa (1973) - Probably the most enjoyable of the series. Made in Europe (hence Frank Finlay as the wigged villain, the likes of Thomas Baptiste, Nadim Sawalha and Cy Grant, and Glynn Edwards), it feels almost an answer film to Live and Let Die. The Northern Soul-y Four Tops theme is by one Brian Potter. Though British-Asian Marne Maitland does appear to be blacked up as the M-ish RP-accented Ethiopian attaché (his skin is conspicuously darkened - Indians in Africa aren't exactly rare, but still...). Though Richard Roundtree's African accent's a bit embarrassing. Vonetta McGee is must better served here than in her frankly scandalous turn as the stereotyped jive-talkin' "Jemima" The Eiger Sanction.
Hitler The Last Ten Days (1973) - Alec is a better serious actor than a comedian. Weirdly experimental with sepia flashbacks. It is basically like the later The Bunker, a showcase for great jobbing character actors. Ends suddenly.
Sugarland Express (1974) - Spielberg's official debut, feels like a TV movie cash in on Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry.
Conduct Unbecoming (1975) - All-star period hysterics, a Harold Robbins-type bonkbuster in Carry On Up the Khyber drag. Stacy Keach is convincing as a British military type. But it's all quite restrained, and far from sensationalist as it seems.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1975) - Another story of burnt-out middle aged crooks in NYC.
Jonathan Livingstone Seagull (1974) - Lovely live action photography soundtracked by Neil Diamond - ridiculous story. CSO Seagulls!
The Longest Yard (1974) - Not an American football fan, but even then, a typical Southern Fried romp AND a prison movie. Not my lunch.
Mr. Ricco (1975) - Basically, Dean Martin in a blaxploitation film.
Diary of the Dead (1975) - Feels like a regional horror, actually a dull Ruth Rendell mystery.
SMILE (1975) - Depressing, smug and Altmanesque. Ok.ru.
The Last Tycoon (1975) - Despite having De Niro, Nicholson, Mitchum, Milland, etal, this rather bonkbuster-ish Fitzgerald adap has the feel of a miniseries. The Maurice Jarre score is recycled in Winter Kills.
The Day of the Locust (1975) - Another dislikeable Hollywood about Hollywood folly, from John Schlesinger. Donald Sutherland plays Homer Simpson. Wildly miscast. Kaen Black's turn as a teenager is like something out of a miniseries. Annoyed grunt indeed.
The Wild Party (1975) - Yet another Hollywood story, but from the curious combo of AIP and Merchant-Ivory. So it's po-faced period drama meets sexploitation. Like a larger version of the same year's Inserts.
The Next Man (1976) - George Pravda as a Russian. pearly queens, Sean Connery as anArab again, Sean Connery not as an Arab, partly set in Dublin, hence Bill Golding, David Kelly. This is not fun, though. Almost, but it devolves into OPEC brownface tackiness.
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) - Hmm, probably too young to get the story. Found it kind of aimless.And also about middle-age, and for the middle-aged.Then again, it is a noirish, sleazy dive.
Sweet Revenge (1976) - Stockard Channing in an unmemorable "revenge comedy".
The Monkey Hu$tle (1976) - Yaphet Kotto does his Mr. Big voice in a family-friendly Rudy Ray Moore movie.
Fellini's Casanova (1977) - Italian Ken Russell imitation.
Between The Lines (1977) - Marvel-loving baby boomer magazine makers have sex. Smug comedy with Paedophile Stephen Collins and his presumed crush, child-man Michael J. Pollard. And young, slightly annoying Goldblum.
The Domino Principle (1977) - Dull, TV movie-ish ITC nonsense.
The Hazing (1977) - Not a horror as marketed, but an unfunny college dramedy.
Islands in the Stream (1977) - George C. Scott in "aw shucks" Hemmingway drama. Lovely Hawaiian locations don't quite convince as the Caribbean, despite the nice Goldsmith soundtrack. And African-American actors doing West Indian accents is always embarrassing. Feels like it is a sex scene away from becoming a bonkbuster. Ok.ru
For The Love of Benji (1977) -Weirdly-toned sentimental dog fare. The best thing is seeing an almost entirely American production with Peter Bowles at the centre.
Corvette Summer (1978) - Strange New Hollywood take on car-racing exploitation movies with Mark Hamill. Desperate attempt to elevate Cormanesque trash. Ok.ru
Remember My Name (1978) - Altmanian private eye aimlessness that doesn't stick.
Matilda (1978) - AIP give a sub Disney story of a male boxing kangaroo a decent cast but it is indescribably awful. Not even Clive Revill as a Scottish trainer and a Mafia subplot help.
Goin' South (1978) - Nicholson makes a western-comedy, not funny. It's like Blazing Saddles in the style of High Plains Drifter or a Monte Hellman film.
Hanover Street (1979) - Harrison Ford, Lesley-Anne Down and Christopher Plummer at his sexiest have a love triangle with a Boys' Own adventure about Nazis shoehorned in. An uneasy but well-made Jekyll/Hyde film with John Barry's Barriest score.
Running (1979) - Michael Douglas runs around Canada. TV movie-esque not-tearjerker.
On The Air With Captain Midnight (1979) - Annoying sub-Rock and Roll High School teen pirate radio delinquent nonsense.
The Onion Field (1979) - Is that Ted Danson munching on something? Yes, it is. The highlight of this typical Joseph Wambaugh film, slowly chronicling cops waiting in cars. Watched it on ok.ru.
See also The Choirboys (1977), which is basically a dirtier, slightly more serious Police Academy, complete with an overqualified cast and a singalong theme.
Breakthrough (1979) - Burton, Steiger, Mitchum and Jurgens re-enact the war like ageing Japanese soldiers in this semi-official German sequel to Cross of Iron.
The Passage (1979) - Another late 70s Euro-War would-be epic.Tonally all over. Anthony Quinn, James Mason and Christopher Lee try seriously. But Malcolm McDowell tries to out-Derren Nesbitt Derren Nesbitt as a lip-licking Nazi gourmand in a paper chef hat.
Spetters (1980) - Verhoeven melds Lemon Popsicle, BMX Bandits and Silver Dream Racer. Just as off-putting as that sounds.
Bad Timing (1980) - Dreary kink.
The Earthling (1980) - Inadvertently hilarious but rather dreary and confused Peter Collinson vehicle,a nearly dead William Holden copes with mortality while Ricky Schroeder cries on cue.
Roadie (1980) - Features lots of bands and acts as themselves, yet Meatloaf plays a character. Obnoxious southern-fried sub-Altman musical. The late Boomer/early Gen X Nashville or Hee Haw High School.
Fort Apache -The Bronx (1981) - Interesting, documentary-like but very televisual, but it's by Time-Life. It looks like the American Policeman from Look Around You.
Coup De Torchon (1981) - Noiret-Huppert noir, just Noiret looking puzzled and Isabelle being steamy in Africa. Not quite my thing.
Blow Out (1981) - Fuck off.
Tootsie (1982) - Not quite my thing. Believable, but caught in two tones. It might have worked better as a drama.
One from the Heart (1982) - Coppola makes Vegas even more tacky by building it in a studio and going all Dennis Potter-goes-Country.
A Soldier's Story (1984) - It's not a genre film per se. It's a solid film. It looks beautiful, but the US military bores me. It feels like Quantum Leap.
Remo Williams - The Adventure Begins (1985) - A Bond imitation based on a series of wild pulp novels that is pedestrian, has no setpieces, exoticism and adventure.
I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988) - Blaxploitation films were brash and colourful. By 1988, everything is dowdy. This parody looks dowdy, like an episode of Father Dowling Mysteries.
Short Time (1990) - A weird Canadian Rank comedy, typical TV-level cop slapstick with Dabney Coleman.
Beavis and Butthead Do America (1994) - Oddly entrancing. And it has Engelbert Humperdinck singing Lesbian Seagull.
Bhaji On The Beach (1994) - Possibly Gurinder Chadha's best. A slight air of Peter Chelsomish magic realism helps. Though its Blackpool is aptly rather grim, nowhere near the psychedelic clubland underworld of Funny Bones, the film is almost stolen by Peter Cellier as a daft old thesp whose wife left for him for her lesbian agent,. and romances ageing shopkeeper Asha (Lalita Ahmed) with his stories of being browned-up in colonial adventure films of the 50s. Hence a bizarre Bollywood dream sequence with Cellier in ridiculous wig and boot-polish.
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