Bulldog Edition (1936)

Bulldog Edition is a frequently ridiculous but fun 1930s newspaper / crime romp. Two rival newspapers are engaged in a bitter circulation war and a notorious gangster Nick Enright (Cy Kendall) is mixed up in it.

As one newspaper (the Daily News) is after him and trying to expose his crimes thanks to top newspaper men Ken (Ray Walker) and Jim (Regis Toomey) and cartoonist Randy (Evalyn Knapp) Enright muscles in to help the rival paper. Unfortunately the editor soon finds that a gangster's help comes with strings attached...

A fast moving film, sometimes a little too fast to be honest, but with lots of sharp dialogue. There are also a number of strange scenes which take the film off at odd tangents such as the radio game show which quickly erupts into a mass brawl! The rest of the plot is nonsense but great fun.

The New York Hat (1912)

A sweet if insubstantial little film. Mary Pickford plays the daughter of a stern father (Charles Hill Mailes) and dying mother (Kate Bruce). The mother writes to a pastor (Lionel Barrymore) and asks him to finally get her a treat which she had always been denied by her father. He buys her a fancy hat!

Unfortunately the village begins to gossip, not knowing of the letter, and Mary's father destroys the hat in a rage...

Well it's all very straight forward but nicely produced. Mary Pickford portrays her role perfectly.

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983)

Three women have crash landed on a plagued planet inhabited by a lot of people wearing rags, Wolff (Peter Strauss) - a kind of bounty hunter - is lured by the prospect of a big reward to rescue them. Once there he finds the rescue not as simple as he hoped especially when he hooks up with troublesome local girl Nikki (Molly Ringwald).

Wolff and Niki travel across various cyberpunk set masterpieces also linking up with an ex-colleague of Wolff, Washington (Ernie Hudson). Eventually they arrive at the forbidding HQ of Overdog (Michael Ironside) who drains essence from young woman and also hurls slaves into the Maze, a kind of deadly Total Wipeout with lots of sharp edges...

The film does genuinely look amazing though often unoriginal, at times it looks like a big budget remake of a low-budget Italian remake of Mad Max. Or maybe an overlong early 1980s pop video. The action is lacking at times though promises so much. It was released as a 3-D film so that explains a lot of the action involves things falling towards the camera, they maybe got a little carried away with that. The plot is basically one set piece of mild peril followed by another but amusing enough and there are some good lines especially from Overdog. The film is worth it alone though for the technology of the forbidden world especially the sail powered train!

Religious Racketeers (1938)

The Great LaGagge (Robert Fiske) is a fake fakir who helps troubled rich women with their troubles using the "psychic plane" and relieving them of the burden of having any money. The police are already after him though after an elderly victim dies of shock at his temple during a seance, the press in the form of reporter Elliot (Arthur Gardner) are also on LaGagge's trail.

One complication is that Martha (Helene LeBerthon), a rich but troubled young woman whom Arthur has the hots for, is drawn into LaGagge's net and targeted as his next victim...

Frequently ridiculous, especially the scenes in the temple with the "mystic" powers facilitated by some behind the scenes trickery, but hilarious (unintentionally). Things really go crazy when LaGagge whisks Martha off to Egypt (you'll know it as the Sphinx is in the background!) and then India. Martha and her friend Ava (Betty Compson) are somewhat suspicious though as the great mystic in the desert looks like LaGagge with a fake beard... and funnily enough...

Look out for the real Mrs Houdini who appears in a short cameo.

Missed Date (1986)

Olivia Cheng is a bored housewife who is neglected by her husband (Henry Yung). He puts his business (advertising executive natch - though which seems to mostly include flirting with female clients) first and his wife second even though she works hard to be the perfect wife (which happily for male viewers includes lots of yoga and aerobics).

However when she meets a tennis instructor played by Chow Yun Fat she toys with the idea of an affair but decides she cannot as she is loyal to her man...

But then she finds her hubby hopelessly drunk with a female client and follows them to a love hotel. While her man and the client indulge in the beast with two backs in one room Olivia and Mr Chow chat and laugh in another room in quite an amusing parallel. Yet, of course, both couples leave the hotel at the same time and meet up in an awkward moment.

The marriage is over but the hubby hopes to woo her again yet spends his time smoking at his desk wondering what to do. He is too late anyway, his wife has sailed off with Chow...

A pretty good 80s HK film that is accompanied by a couple of killer cantopop tunes by Andy Lau and Priscilla Chan. Cantopop was designed for such dramatic romantic times.

Sinful Cargo (1936)

Sinful Cargo is a serviceable crime drama involving illegal immigration. Alan (Conrad Nagel) is a Federal Agent sent to Hollywood to investigate the racket and gets involved with reporter Bobbie Reynolds (Eleanor Hunt) and her hapless cameraman Vince Barnett.

The suspicion is that a film production company run by Crane Wilbur and Jack La Rue which doesn't seem to make any films is really a front for the racket. With the help of Bobbie, Alan pretends to be an aspiring actor to get involved with the production company and see exactly what they are producing.

It's not the best of films, Vince Barnett's hapless cameraman is a one joke role and unfortunately that joke stinks. However the plot is interesting enough and Jack La Rue plays a good role. At times the film has the breakneck air of an adventure serial, which isn't a bad thing of course.

This was the first of four movies with Alan, Bobbie and Vince in these same roles, another film was 1937's Bank Alarm.

The Gelignite Gang (1956)

Although nothing that special or unusual The Gelignite Gang is a decent enough crime drama.

A brutal gang is robbing (with explosives hence the name of the gang) and killing unfortunates left, right and centre. An insurance investigator (and imported American) Jimmy Baxter (Wayne Morris) is on the case though is warned off by the gang, and anyone who tries to rat on the gang is quickly despatched...

Despite this Baxter and his boss John Rutherford (Patrick Holt) continue the investigation and with the help of Baxter's squeeze (and secretary) Sally Morton (Sandra Dorne) begin to track down the gang and try and unravel who the Mr Big (or G) is behind the crimes...

The film is fast moving though full of cliches. Eric Pohlmann in particular chews the scenery as the nightclub boss in the know and with a regular supply of vague but sinister threats. Despite everything the film is undeniably fun. The identity of Mr G is a secret though a seasoned watcher of these kinds of films will probably guess who is it quite quickly!

Tragic Fantasy : Tiger Of Wanchai (1994)

The streets of Wan Chai in HK never looked so bloody, every Karaoke lounge and bar is a battleground complete with heaps of dead hoodlums.

Simon Yam plays the part of a parking attendant who rises to boss in the triads, but of course as soon as you rise then there are rival bosses who want you to fall. We've seen it all before of course many times in HK cinema, but this is especially quite gritty. However at the same time the film doesn't engage you fully, it lacks that extra special something. So no X-factor, though has plenty of XXX factor. Violence aplenty and not a small amount of sex.

The film is basically a HK triad romp: Simon looks cool and his love Marianne Chan looks hot, and action is interspersed with some cool mid-90s cantopop tunes, including a bit where Roy Cheung is firing an AK-47 in slo-mo to a musical accompaniment. Lau Ching Wan plays the usual (for these films) bumbling character, the film certainly doesn't lack for 1990s HK star power.

It's supposed to be based on a true story but let's just say it's maybe a little itty bit exaggerated...

Murder at Midnight (1931)

A parlour game at a posh mansion ends in disaster when a man is shot for real by Jim Kennedy (Kenneth Thomson) when the blanks are exchanged for real bullets in a gun. Inspector Taylor (Robert Elliot) turns up to investigate the accident (or murder) but things take a turn for the worse when Kennedy is shot dead too.

The investigation begins in earnest and the usual collection of stereotypes (haughty matriarch (Clara Bandick), nervous young man (Leslie Fenton), flighty maid (Alice White), sinister butler (Brandon Hurst) et cetera are under investigation. Is Kennedy's wife Esme (Aileen Pringle) the culprit? Luckily criminologist Philip Montrose (Hale Hamilton) is on hand in the best traditions of Golden Age type detective stories to help the hapless police out...

The film is a nicely done whodunnit, if rather unoriginal dark house mystery. Many films with similar storylines were made in the 1930s, if one lesson is to be learned from all of these films is that its not a good idea to agree to being shot by a gun supposedly loaded with blanks! The pacing is good and the performances acceptable, not all early talkies were hamstrung by awkward pauses.

Pool Sharks (1915)

W.C. Fields and his rival Larry Westford are both trying to woo Marian West. First there are some antics at a picnic which involve lots of falling over, kicked backsides and other slapstick.

Then the two rivals head to the pool hall where after a number of amazing trick shots it all descends into a big fight and more slapstick. Truthfully its not the best silent comedy you'll ever see but not bad. It had some interesting camera work including some close-ups (still not that common in 1915) and stop-motion animation during the pool shots.

It was also W.C. Field's first film which is probably the most notable thing here.

The Phantom (1931)

A notorious criminal, The Phantom, is due to be executed in jail but just before he can be sent to the chair he stages an audacious escape: climbing a wall, jumping onto a passing train and then climbing aboard a ladder carried by an aeroplane. Well that is quite a promising start...

The Phantom vows to kill the man who put him away, he even says when he is going to do it. The police obviously think they can get The Phantom easily, but of course things do not go to plan...

The premise is promising but the execution is at times shocking. Overall the film is rather shoddy and rushed. The acting is also pretty awful especially from Allene Ray, Violet Knights and Tom O'Brien who must play one the worst police officer roles in history. Of course being an early talkie some of the silent movie actors had not yet transitioned to the different disciplines and method of acting in a sound movies, so everything is a bit awkward and overly dramatic. It isn't all terrible and is worth watching despite everything, there is a kind of campy appeal about the whole farce.

Mrs. Pym of Scotland Yard (1940)

The deaths of two women in mysterious circumstances and no apparent cause forces Scotland Yard into extreme measures: appointing a female detective for the case. Amid much late 1930s misogyny Mrs Pym (Mary Clare) and her sidekick Shott (Edward Lexy) get on with the case.

Both murdered women attended the same seances and left all their money to the a psychic club led by Professor Mencken (Anthony Ireland) and his assistant Miss Bell (Irene Handl) so there is some cause for suspicion...

Meanwhile rich industrialist Frank Wood (Vernon Kelso) seems very keen for his devoted niece Maraday (Janet Johnson) to attend the seances despite her fiance's (Nigel Patrick) scepticism and she seems to the next to be targeted. How is this all connected and can Mrs Pym solve it before she is kicked off the case?

It is all gloriously breezy hokum with plenty of 1930s mysticism and nonsense. The story itself is ridiculous though the method of murder is certainly innovative. It shouldn't be taken very seriously then it can be truly enjoyed.

Girl with a Gun (1982)

Yin Hsia plays an unfortunate girl, mute after being orphaned who is raped on the way home. And when she gets home she disturbs a burgular who tries to rape her again, but she grabs an iron and clobbers him. Then she cuts his corpse up and puts it in the fridge... as you do. She grabs his gun and begins a one-woman crusade against anything male... No it's not a comedy.

The action is furious, the shootings are rather unrealistic (she doesn't seem to aim very well but shoots them stone dead every time), especially in the gang fight scene which borrows heavily from one of the best films of all time The Warriors. The action even takes place in a fairground (but its not Coney Island obviously).

Alan Tam plays her boss and at the end she is invited to a party which involves ...er... limbo dancing. But by now the police are on her trail as her landlady has become suspicious, investigated her apartment and found something rather ewww in the fridge. Best not tell her though that Yin Hsia has already fed the landlady's cat human meat. Burp!

And Yin Hsia ends up in the asylum. She doesn't utter a single word throughout the entire film. Which is probably just as well as the film doesn't score highly for acting, though does for the sheer nonsense of the revenge plot.

Police Court (1932)

Heavy on melodrama, Police Court starts off in... a police court! We find drunkard Nat Barry (Henry B Walthall), who once was one of the brightest stars on stage, about to be sent to prison for a long sentence. After a last minute plea by his son (Leon Janney) he is given a final chance and a role in a film...

However Nat Barry is truly gone, he can't stick to his lines or stay sober. His decline continues, even ending up having to do an impression of Abraham Lincoln in a sideshow, and it all becomes rather bleak. Nat ends up in prison but his son begins his own movie career but when he needs help can his father come good for him...

The film could have done with a little more lightness but has some terrific performances especially from Walthall. The title of the film is a little confusing, very little of the film actually takes place in court.

An Inspector Calls (1954)

A superb Golden Age style murder mystery set just before the First World War. A posh family are having dinner (in their evening dress of course) when Inspector Poole (Alastair Sim) turns up. He tells them a young girl named Eva has been found dead.

Every family member in turn finds out that they may have had a hand in her death. Mr Birling (Arthur Young) for example sacked her once from his factory for trouble making. The daughter Sheila (Eileen Moore) got her fired from her job in a store for wearing a hat better than she did. As the puzzle continues to unravel via flashbacks then so too does the supposed respectability of the Birling family...

Outwardly a simple film but full of surprises and twists (especially at the end) and so wonderfully done. Alastair Sim plays a wonderful role, he lets the store unfold around him as the hypocrisy and immorality of Edwardian England is laid bare.

Murder is News (1937)

An entertaining if unsurprising murder mystery. Industrialist Edgar Drake (William McIntyre) is going through a divorce with his wife Pauline (Doris Lloyd) as revealed by reporter Jerry Tracy (John Gallaudet). When Edgar Drake calls Tracy to his home Jerry arrives to find Drake dead on the floor. Then Jerry is knocked out cold by an unknown assailant, when he awakes the police (Colin Kenny) are around but there is no sign of Drake...

In conjunction with the police Jerry, with his assistant Brains (not the one out of Thunderbirds) McGillicuddy (George McKay) tries to find out exactly what is going on. Was Edgar Drake killed and if so where is his body, and who committed the crime? Is it the man Pauline plans to marry (John Hamilton)? Or her son Tony (Frank C. Wilson)? Or someone else entirely like night club owner Frank Hammer (John Graham Spacey)?

Its fast paced and breezy, nothing too innovative and the plot is rather contrived but it's well done all the same. The film follows the well-worn 1930s trope of a newspaper reporter leading a crime case as if he was on the police force. Iris Meredith plays the heroine.

Midnight Limited (1940)

On an overnight sleeper train a ruthless robber (I. Stanford Jolly) steals diamonds and other valuables from passengers including Joan Marshall (Marjorie Reynolds) who has lost papers vital for her future. Railroad detective Val Lennon (John King) is on the case and Joan demands she be allowed to join him in the hunt for the thief (and the papers).

The investigation begins, just how does the thief get away and who is this professor (George Cleveland) who always seems to be around when the robberies take place?

It is a fair enough crime drama though can be a bit slow at times. Despite being a short film it is a bit ponderous and wordy, though does include a short musical number! However the crime itself is interesting, organised by a crooked hotel clerk (Warren Jackson) who tips off the robbers about train passengers with a lot of cash. Val and Joan make a good team.