Enemy Agents Meet Ellery Queen (1942)

Ellery Queen returns to combat a Nazi gang after diamonds.

Free Dutch agents have smuggled diamonds into the US to keep them away from the Nazis... though a Nazi gang is hot on their heels. Ellery Queen (William Gargan) and Nikki Porter (Margaret Lindsay) are dragged into the case, at first thinking the Dutch agent Gillette (Gilbert Roland) is a criminal but soon they discover the truth. The case is a complicated one with some unexpected twists.

This was the final entry in the Ellery Queen series and the series ends on a high. A lot is packed into the war time plot and it ends with some good rough humour in the final fight scene. Of course, there is a bit of a propaganda edge to the film though this doesn't overbear the story.

Danger Trails (1935)

A nice enough though unspectacular Western.

Bob (Guinn Big Boy Williams) is a successful football star back east who heads back west to see his father and brothers whom he has not seen for years. 

However, to his surprise his family members are outlaws and they rob the stagecoach he is on! He manages to persuade his father to go straight but his father is killed by the sheriff. The brothers kidnap the sheriff's daughter (Marjorie Gordon), forcing Bob to choose between family and the law...

This is a fine enough example of a B-movie Western. It has all the usual tropes including speeded up horse riding and plenty of aimless firing of pistols (seldom hitting anyone of course) plus regular fights. The film is a worthwhile watch though has little you would have not seen before.

The Thousand Plane Raid (1969)

Much stock footage is assembled to give Nazi Germany a really bad time.

We are still early in the Second World War, British and American bombers are launching piece meal raids on Germany but Colonel Brandon (Christopher George) believes the raids need to be much bigger so a target can be devastated. 

Finally, Brandon is given the all clear to plan such a raid, but he needs help. He does not appreciate that the help comes in the form of cocky RAF Spitfire Howard (Gary Marshal). After much disagreement and no small number of training mishaps the raid is on, and of course Brandon and Howard are thrown together to lead the attack...

Not a bad film despite the limited budget, which therefore forced a reliance on a little more stock footage than i'm sure they would have preferred but we do get plenty of real B-17s. The story is a bit cliched but the structure of the film is sound and the combat scenes meaty enough.

The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story (1988)

A tense TV movie about a real-life hijacking that took place just a couple of years before.

Chief flight attendant Uli (Lindsay Wagner) thinks her next flight will be a run-of-the-mill run from Athens. However, soon into the flight two Hezbollah terrorists hijack the flight. Castro (Eli Danker) threatens to blow up the plane unless the crew do as they say. 

The plane is soon travelling backwards and forwards between Beirut and Algiers, Uli and the rest of the crew are trying to keep their passengers safe, especially their Jewish ones and US servicemen, while the terrorists demand the release of prisoners...

An excellent film, the low budget helping to keep everything low-key and very believable. The terrorists are brutal, violent but also humanised to build out the characters and not making them 2-D cardboard cut-outs as so often happens with characters like this on screen.

The Greene Murder Case (1929)

An early Philo Vance talkie.

The Greene family are that staple of interwar American families on screen: rich and hate each other! They live in the family ancestral pile and must live there for fifteen years otherwise they won't get a share of the late Mr Greene's wealth. 

After two of the family are killed within a few minutes of each other, Philo Vance (William Powell) is called in by the baffled police (Eugene Palette) to help, but even he is confused by the various possible suspects, though it helps that the possible suspects are being whittled down by being murdered too! 

A good film. Technically interesting especially with some of the camera angles in the final act and the peril on the roof. The story is good with some interesting psychological aspects to it. Although an early talkie the sound recording and acting isn't too bad.