King of the Bandits (1947)

Part of the long-running Cisco Kid series of films.

The Cisco Kid (Gilbert Roland) is travelling through Arizona with Pancho (Chris-Pin Martin), he discovers that someone is conducting robberies but disguising themselves as the Cisco Kid to shift the blame! 

The Kid retrieves some stolen loot but ends up captured himself by the US Army. The Kid and Pancho manage to escape and then go after the real villain Smoke Kirby (Anthony Warde)...

A fun romp of a film which doesn't take itself very seriously, Roland plays the Kid rather tongue in cheek throughout and also is very charismatic.

Get Christie Love! (1974)

A sassy cop drama with a blaxploitation feel which led to a TV series.

Christie Love (Teresa Graves) is a copy sent undercover to find the evidence to break up a drug gang led by Paul Stevens. According to intelligence, the crime boss' squeeze Helena (Louise Sorel) knows where the ledger is to provide the needed evidence. Christie discovers though that Helena with her photographic memory is the ledger. She finds a way to get Helena to play ball by tracking down her long-lost son...

This is an enjoyable film with some good early 1970s soul and cool. Being a TV movie it is pretty restrained compared to the usual blaxploitation film but this helps with some intelligence in the plot which means Christie does some good detective work in the film instead of just beating people up with her dubious martial arts skills (though there is still some of that!) 

A good watch.

Mr. Moto in Danger Island (1939)

A fun Mr Moto adventure where he unlocks a complicated crime plot with the help of a professional wrestler.

Mr Moto (Peter Lorre) heads to Puerto Rico to uncover a diamond smuggling gang, on the way he befriends a pro wrestler Twister (Warren Hymer) who ends up assisting Moto. 

Someone high up on the island is behind the diamond smuggling plot and tries to get rid of Moto even more he can begin his investigation. Moto disguises himself as a Japanese criminal in order to try and infiltrate the gang and uncover the mastermind...

A good crime B-move with the usual fast moving action, well structured plot and red herrings. Interestingly, this was originally to be a Charlie Chan film set in Trinidad but changed to become a Moto story after the death of Warner Oland.

Fight to Win (1987)

Martial artists fight over ancient Chinese statues.

Sensei (Hidy Ochiai) has in his possession two of three ancient and valuable Chinese statues. Rival martial arts school boss Armstrong (Richard Norton) has another and challenges Sensei (who is suffering from ill health) to pit his champion against Armstrong's, the winner gets the statue. 

Sensei chooses Ryan (George Chung), who unfortunately gets badly beaten. With the re-match upcoming, Sensei brings in one of his old pupils Lauren (Cynthia Rothrock) to teach Ryan...

Well the plot isn't anything special but this is a perfectly decent late 1980s martial arts film which doesn't take itself too seriously. Chung and Rothrock have good interplay and the fight scenes hold up very well.

Diplomatic Courier (1952)

A tense early Cold War thriller.

Diplomatic Courier Mike Kells (Tyrone Power) is sent to central Europe to retrieve a package from a colleague. After he finds his colleague dead, he is dragged into a dangerous search for the package which contains details of a Soviet plot. 

It seems that Janine (Hildegard Knef), an associate of his dead colleague, may be a Soviet agent but what about Joan (Patricia Neal) who just happens to bump into Mike in most unexpected places...

An enjoyable film and an interesting period piece, set in Trieste when it was an independent city state and on the front line of the Iron Curtain. A Noir for sure on the brutal battlefield between the superpowers and a shattered continent still recovering from one nightmare and in danger of falling into another.