67

Topaze (1933 - B/W) - Schmaltzy pre-code John Barrymore comdrama.

A Fire Has Been Arranged (1935 - B/W) - Sim, Flanagan and Allen in forgettable blackface-heavy variety/fire brigade thing.

The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936 - B/W) - Preachy Civil War nonsense by John Ford, full of black stereotypes.

Mr. Deeds Goes To Town (1936 - B/W) - I don't quite get most of Capra. His "small man" stories annoy me in some way.

Owd Bob (1938 - BW) - Heart-boiling sheepdogger.

Torment (1944 - B/W) - Bergman drama. Art and somewhat beautiful but not  my thing.

The Razor's Edge (1946 - B/W) - Tyrone Power in a typical piece of Maugham.

Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948 - B/W) - It looks decent in some shots, but the backlot stuff looks comparatively shabby.

The Adventures of P.C. 49: Investigating the Case of the Guardian Angel (1949 - B/W) - Simplistic Eagle/BBC radio adap.

The Saint's Return (1953 - B/W) - Terrible Hammer adaptation with Louis Hayeward.

Break in the Circle (1955 - B/W) - Depressing Hammer maritime drama.

How To Murder A Rich Uncle (1957 - B/W) - Unfunny sub-Ealing sub-Ladykillers (Katie Johnson even appears) comedy with Nigel Patrick and Charles Coburn.

Town on Trial (1958 - B/W) - Like a serious version of the above. Ok.rued extensively.

Never Take Sweets from a Stranger (1960 - B/W) - Preachy but creepy Hammer paedo-drama

And the Same To You (1960 - B/W) - Forgettable Brian Rix-Tommy Cooper-Hartnell-boxingcom.

The Queen's Guards  (1961) - Tedious propaganda that probably damaged Michael Powell more than Peeping Tom.

 The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962)-   Messy  dramedy. Double-Ok.rued.

Son of Captain Blood (1962) - Aside from Sean Flynn playing his dad's old role's offspring, this Italian swashbuckler is utterly unremarkable. Angharad Rees dubs the female lead.

Hemingway's Adventures of A Young Man (1962) - Overlong, schmaltzy roadshow with a strident, mugging, Norman Wisdomesque Paul Newman in a cameo.


The Intruder (1962 - B/W) - Corman/Shatner moralising melodramatics.

The Caretaker (1963 - B/W) - Blofeld and Red Grant do Pinter, moaning in a flat. I imagine this is SPECTRE am-dram.

Cairo (1963 - B/W) - Richard Johnson is an unconvincing Arab. Nuff said.

Quick Before It Melts (1964)  -Irritating Robert Morse comedy about cute penguins and women in Antarctica, with a backlot New Zealand.

The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1964) - Canadian Norn Iron sitcommery with Robert Shaw

A House Is Not a Home (1964 - B/W) - Grim, purportedly glam Shelley Winters prositution saga. Shelley is unconvincingly youthened in segments.

Marco the Magnificent (1965) - Empty, garish Italian epic with a Ming the Merciless-ish Anthony Quinn as Kublai Khan.

Angel's Flight (1965 - B/W) - Unmemorable Crown International noir.

Morgan (1966 - B/W) - David Warner, I love you, but what a load of shite.

Out of Sight (1966) - Irritating beach party fauxn with Freddie and the Dreamers and Dobie Gray.

Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number (1966)-   Silly  sitcomesque Bob    Hope.   See also  8  On   the Lam (1967)

The Naked Prey (1966) - An interesting relic rather than a good film. A time capsule of Africa.

Champagne Murders (1966) - Chabrol claptrap. Ok.rued, barely.

After the Fox (1966) - Peter Sellers does baffling Italian comedy.

Gunn (1967) - TV spinoff private eye nonsense. Ok.ru.

The Wild Season (1967) - Interesting, well-shot Universal-distributed South African fishing drama. Star Antony Thomas later directed things as varied as Death of a Princess and Follyfoot.

Come Spy With Me (1967) - A sub-Beach Party-meets-Nancy Drew Bond knockoff so whitebread and unmemorable that it is a surprise that it has a theme by William "Smoky" (sic) Robinson and the Miracles (that's how they are credited), so funky that it makes the actual film pale in comparison.

Prudence and the Pill (1968) - Idiotic all-star sexcom. David Niven tries to keep up with the Permissive Society.

The April Fools (1969) - The same Jack Lemmon comedy.

Castle Keep (1969) - Bonkers yet derisively clinical war-thing.

Che (1969) - Oh Jaysus, this film is summed up by having young Castro played by 50-odd Jack Palance looking like  elderly Castro in big specs.

Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970) - Horribly arty Faye Dunaway melodrama.

Country Dance (1970) - Terrible sleazy Peter O'Toole-Susannah York incest vehicle, Enniskerry plays a Scottish village where beardless Brian Blessed lives.

The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun (1970) - Forgettably light Euronoir.

Adam's Woman (1970) - Faux-Scouse Australian immigrant saga with Beau Bridges, the kind of interminable thing repeated for TV dramas.

White Sun of the Desert (1970) - Fake-Mongols ahoy in this ponderous though visually nice Soviet western.

Chandler (1971) - Warren Oates PI nonsense that has an ending that negates its  seeming intention to spawn a  franchise. Gordon Pinsent pops up in his brief Hollywood era.

 The Panic in Needle Park (1971) - Young Pacino moans about drugs.

Welcome Home, Soldier Boys (1971) - Despite Joe Don Baker, exploration of the masculinty of the American male and the military life bores me.

Avanti! (1972) - Blandly glossy and hideously miscast.

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972) - Dreary housewive stuff from Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

The Last American Hero (1973) - Dreary NASCAR stuff with Jeff Bridges.
See also Rancho Deluxe (1975) - Bridges in a bar wearing a cowboy hat.
Hearts of the West (1975) - More Bridges, more Alan Arkin over-acting and Donald Pleasence doing American, plus more self-obsessed mid-70s irritating Hollywood nostalgia on an aged backlot a la Day of the Locust. Ok.rued this.

White Fang (1973) - Barren production valued Harry Alan Towers Faux-Canadian Jack London nonsense that nevertheless spawned a subgenre.


The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974) - Irritating Dreyfuss-heavy Canadiana.

Night Caller (-1975) - Typical grim serial killer fare enlivened by Belmondo stuntwork. Double-ok.rued. Rewatch.

Lies My Father Told Me (1975)  - Forgotten, cute but reasonably small Canadian Jewish memoir, Golden Globe winner for Best Foreign Film.

Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976) - Alienating NY nostalgia.

The Sellout (1976) - Dull Ollie Reed actioner.

MacArthur (1977) - Very TV movie ish and budget shown by overreliance on mattes. Plus it has British bobbies in Australia.


Those Wonderful Movie Cranks (1978) - Czech Roy Clarke.

Meatballs (1979) - Idiotic teen comedy that vitalised Canada's film industry.

 In God We Tru$t (1980) - This was banned in Ireland, ironic as Marty Feldman's last film had been made here. But Frank Hall made the right decision. It's awful. Ok.rued.

It Rained All Night the Day I Left (1980) -  Lou Gossett and Tony  Curtis are     Spencer and Hill.

YOUR TICKET IS NO LONGER VALID (1981) - What have I just watched? I knew the title and that it was a Canadian film starring Richard Harris and George Peppard. I expected a downbeat drama about an ageing businessman, something like Tribute or Max Dugan Returns.  But, no, turns out Barbara "Dick" Law wasn't the only Irish showbiz star to do Maple Syrup Porn. It is an utter insane trainwreck where Harris, a 60-year-old (though fifty IRL) globe-trotting gigolo gets impotence, and finds his "bit of crumpet" has gone off with Hispanic gypsy  Winston Rekert who seems styled to look like Gerrit Graham in Phantom of the Paradise, except that is a delusion he has brought on by his impotence.  It ends with the most astonishing sequence in cinema history I have seen. Harris gets his bollocks impaled by Jeanne Moreau, and has a hallucinatory flashback involving exploding chandeliers, S & M fantasies and horse riding. Harris pulls a face and dies. What the fuck?
 Last Tango in Paris written by Harold Robinson (sic).


My Dinner with Andre (1981) - Andre Gregory is highly listenable, in small doses, even though the film is easy to drift from. But probably the best Troma film (yes, that's right - Lloyd Kaufman produced, Troma did post)

The Border (1982) - Over-arty border cop nonsense.