Doctor in Clover (1966)

Traditional British comedy in a hospital, maybe this is like a prototype Grey's Anatomy?

Dr Grimsdyke (Leslie Phillips) is released from prison (where he was the prison doctor not a convict!) He is immediately snatched up by Sir Lancelot Spratt (James Robertson Justice) to work in his hospital. Grimsdyke is fairly uninterested in this, though interested in French physiotherapist Jeannine (Elizabeth Ercy) a lot! 

Meanwhile, a new matron (Joan Sims) has arrived at the hospital and has begun a reign of terror. Sir Lancelot thinks the iron maiden can be melted with a love interest and gets Grimsdyke to try and hook her up, though he didn't think that he would be the one Grimsdyke would get Matron interested in!

So, this is a silly comedy in the great British way. We get lots of farces, a little bit of innuendo and plenty of light humour. It is all nonsense of course but very silly inoffensive fun. Don't expect much in the way of medical realism, do expect people being accidentally injected up the backside.

Invasion of the Neptune Men (1961)

This is a very strange and rather creepy science-fiction film.

Cone helmet wearing invaders from the planet Neptune have landed on Earth. The world can only be saved from these slow moving and clumsy invaders by cape wearing Space Chief (Shin'ichi Chiba) and a bunch of Japanese schoolchildren...

This is pretty weird and awful stuff, the cheese factor is high though. Space Chief drives a rather suspicious looking "rocket car" and fights the invaders with a series of energetic though flimsy looking chops and judo throws. 

Santo vs the Vampire Women (1962)

Masked wrestling super hero antics which takes a while to get going.

A group of vampires led by their queen Zorina (Lorena Velazquez) need a new fresh body to be the next bride of Satan, they choose the daughter of Professor Orlof (Augusto Benedico), Diana (Maria Duval). Only one man can save Diana and foil the vampires, the wrestling legend Santo! 

This is great fun, one of many Mexican films starring real Lucha Libre wrestlers as the heroes and Santo was the greatest of them all, this being just one of dozens of films he made. The only problem with the film is the lengthy first act which includes much slow vampire ritual and pointless moving from one spooky room to the other. Once Santo gets involved then the action and pace really hots up.

Super Seven Calling Cairo (1965)

The success of James Bond in the 1960s sparked a whole wave of copycat films of various quality, this one isn't bad at all.

Super 7 (Roger Browne) is a British agent who is tasked to find a sample of a new super secret radioactive material which has been hidden in a camera. Super 7 heads to Cairo to find that the camera has been sold to a tourist by mistake. Unfortunately the bad guys led by the rather sinister ex-Nazi Alex (Massimo Serato) are also after the material and are quite happy to leave a trail of dead and broken bodies behind them.

Of course as this is a James Bond pastiche there are a number of beautiful women (including Fabienne Dali and Rosalba Neri) involved, some foes and some friends though as the film progresses its hard to know which is which...

This is a fun film that is quite outrageous in how it copies Bond but really thats how it should be. Fairly low budget but full of action.

Tarzan and the Trappers (1960)

Much wildlife stock footage pads out a thin but reasonable Tarzan jungle adventure.

Schroeder (Leslie Bradley) is a big game trapper who takes no notice of laws or basic decency and raids the jungle of animals to sell. When Tarzan (Gordon Scott) interrupts his activities, Schroeder kidnaps Tarzan's son (Rickie Sorenson) and threatens him but Tarzan defeats him. Schroeder's brother Sikes (Sol Gorss) is out for revenge and heads to the jungle for a new hunt but this time his game is Tarzan himself!

This is a TV movie edited from three never shown episodes of a TV series. As with most of these kinds of stories the action obviously takes place in a studio but with lots of stock footage of wild animals. Jane (Eve Brent) does not do a great deal but Cheta the chimp is a great star. Gordon Scott's impressive physique is probably the biggest highlight.

The Fat Spy (1966)

Teen drivel so intensely awful it will probably make you question your life decisions.

A bunch of teens head off, amid much surf guitar music, to a near deserted island. The owner of the island George (Brian Donlevy) doesn't want the island's secret discovered so he sends his daughter Junior (Jayne Mansfield) to see what is going on and get rid of the teens. What is the secret? Well that the island is where the fabled fountain of youth is located apparently. Junior is more interested in seeing her boyfriend Irving (Jack E Leonard) who lives on the island, though he is more interested in plants. Much inane antics and music (and a lot of dancing by scantily clad young people - being spied on by old men natch) take place...

So, this isn't a great film. It is light and cheaply made. So cheap in fact they ran out of money so didn't film the end of it. However, it isn't all bad (just mostly) - some of the music is in fact rather good.

Fallguy (1962)

A rather inept drama though not without some highlights.

Sonny (Ed Dugan) is a cocky young man driving his convertible who happens upon an attempted road side murder of a gangster (G.J. Mitchell). Sonny ends up the prisoner of the man, but then dragged into a conspiracy involving a crooked doctor (Don Alderette) and police chief (Louis Gartner). Sonny is framed for the murder of the gangster and the powerful figures up against him means he needs some evidence. Can the doctor's daughter June (Madeline Frances) provide any of that?

The film is a bit shoddy around the edges with mysterious direction at times and patchy acting and plot, plus has the budget of a cheese burger. It does have a noir edge to it though, especially in the last act. Sonny and June do become characters you care about and you'll stick around to see if they survive. For a short film though it can be a bit of a drag.

Why Must I Die? (1960)

A tense and enthralling Noir crime drama.

Lois (Terry Moore) tries to break out of her life of involvement in crime and becomes a singer in a club owned by Kenny (Phil Harvey) whom she falls in love with. However, her previous life catches up with her when old criminal accomplice Eddie (Lionel Ames) and his new moll Dottie (Debra Paget) catch up with Lois and want her help in robbing the club. The crime goes wrong and Kenny ends up gunned down. Lois gets the blame and ends up on death row. Her only hope is that Dottie admits that she committed the murder herself...

This is an excellent film, well structured and continually rising to an explosive crescendo. The film is a battle between two strong female wills and serves as a cautionary tale against capital punishment. Stylish but sleazy at the same time.

High School Caesar (1960)

A hilariously bad example of the high school drama genre (though are any of them any good?)

Matt (John Ashley) is the school's bad boy with his gang of followers but feared and hated by everyone else. The school mafia boss beats up weaker kids for their lunch money and gets copies of tests which he can sell to other kids. He also wants to be the school president but is up for election against Kelly (Lowell Brown) who wants none of that nonsense! Soon, much of the rest of the school also decide to stop the tyrannical rule of Matt...

Lets cut straight to the chase, this is a pretty awful film with a lack of action and endless wooden and stilted dialogue. It does have a few bright moments though including the character of Matt who isn't quite the one dimensional baddie you might think at first. In fact the more you know about his background (rich but neglected) the more you understand and he plays the role well. Much of the rest of the film though can be binned.

Date Bait (1960)

Delinquent teens twisted by drugs, rock and roll and huge cars.

Brad (Dick Gering) returns home after spending some time in rehab. He tries to get in with Sue (Marlo Ryan), who he is sweet on, but she isn't keen and is with Logan (Gary Clarke) instead. Brad and Logan have a rather limp fight in the teen bar.

Brad's older brother (John Garwood) intervenes and beats up Logan for him, he orders Brad to help him out with his drug dealing. Brad finds the lure of drugs a challenge. Meanwhile, Logan and Sue's young love runs up against parental disapproval and they decide to skip to Vegas...

This is standard teen B-movie fare. The storyline is basic, the acting also pretty basic (though fairly serviceable) and the settings and direction average. It is an enjoyable little film though, Logan and Sue are fairly sympathetic characters. The rock and roll is cool, the 1950s cars are even cooler.

Village of the Giants (1965)

Annoying teens eat a weird chemical created by an even more annoying pre-teen and become giant annoying teens.

A group of delinquents led by Fred (Beau Bridges) turn up in a small town. In that town Mike (Tommy Kirk) is trying to make out with his girlfriend (Charla Doherty) when little Genius (Ron Howard) invents a weird orange goo which turns animals into giants. 

Naturally its not long before Fred and his gang take the goo themselves and become giants who terrorise the town. Normal size teens and adults are at their mercy...

Now, it doesn't sound very promising, the special effects and acting are not up to much and most of the characters are hard to warm to. However, despite that the film is great fun, maybe because it is just so ridiculous.

In the Year 2889 (1969)

We are in the future, actually no we arn't. In fact this is a rather low budget slice of nonsense set firmly in 1969.

World War 3 has occurred, radiation is killing everyone but smug Captain John (Neil Fletcher) has a plan in his remote house protected from the fall out by geographical oddities. Unfortunately his remote house doesn't turn out to be that remote after all after a number of unwanted guests come to join him and his daughter (Charla Doherty). While some of the visitors including Steve (Paul Petersen) are benign, Micky (Hugh Feagin) is a wrong-un just waiting to cause trouble. There also appears to be a radiation mutated monster prowling in the gardens...

Low budget and low thrills, it also has a distinct lack of good acting (though Doherty isn't bad). The story is a bit slow and stilted and sometimes you wish for the radiation to put us all out of out misery. The title by the way has nothing to do with the film, but is taken from a Jules Verne short story. That probably is the most interesting thing about this disaster.

Climb up the Wall (1960)

Some very strange stuff, it must have been cool in 1960 (well you would hope anyway).

A rather surreal and formless variety show hosted by cardigan and tie wearing Jack Jackson. It jumps between comedy sketches and oddness and some music performances including by George Calypso Browne, some of which are pretty good as well. File footage including Elvis in US Army uniform is also included. 

It is all light nonsense (incredibly it was directed by Michael Winner of all people) and can be hard going at times being rather cringe worthy. However, if you give it a chance then it can be fun (sometimes even intentionally), and fascinating at the same time. 

Gamera vs Viras (1968)

Every Japanese child's favourite rocket propelled giant turtle battles a bizarre space monster, as usual.

Aliens plan to conquer the Earth, however the mighty Gamera spoils their plans by destroying their ship. The aliens (in another ship of course) instead use two annoying cub scouts in a submarine to trap Gamera and put him under their control. 

Gamera then destroys Tokyo, which has probably only just been rebuilt after the last time Gamera destroyed it. Finally, Gamera is released from the alien spell but then has to battle Viras the giant space squid...

This is the usual Japanese monster fare but includes little you have not seen before (sometimes literally as this is padded out with footage from earlier films). Its OK but there are better monster films out there.

Catalina Caper (1967)

Swinging teens foil a gang of crooks, not as bad as you might fear but not far off...

A criminal couple (Del Moore and Sue Casey) steal a valuable painting and take it to Catalina island where they plan to swindle a dodgy Greek art collector by showing him the real one then selling him a fake. The collector Lakapolous (Lee Deane) however, has his own scheme to steal the painting off the gang. The couple's son Tad (Peter Duryea) finds out what his folks are up to and plans to steal the painting himself and return it. Other kids including Don (Tommy Kirk) also get involved.

If thats not enough there is a mysterious guy who is watching them but keeps falling into the water, oh and Catalina island is full of teens in their swimwear dancing about in that swinging 1960s pop manner soon to be made obsolete by psychedelia.

This is light fare really, and quite ridiculous too. Basically a 1960s beach movie with a bit of crime added. The frequent musical interludes take any momentum away from any other part of the story, one of these interludes does include a cameo from Little Richard though so thats quite cool and probably the movie's best bit.

Moon Zero Two (1969)

While mankind was reaching the Moon for real, this film explored what might be happening there in a few decades time: salvaging junk, drinking awful booze in Moon based saloon bars and having purple hair.

Kemp (James Olson) is a former hero astronaut (the first man on Mars) but is now relegated to flying a worn out old ferry and salvaging broken satellites. He is hired by mega rich JJ Hubbard (Warren Mitchell) for a secret and fairly illegal job: force an asteroid that is basically a giant sapphire to crash on the Moon so it can be much easily mined. Kemp, in need of cash, carries this out.

But meanwhile Clem (Catherine Shell) has arrived on the Moon and also need Kemp's help to find her missing Moon miner brother. As he helps her he finds himself drawn into JJ Hubbard's darker and much more deadly plan...

This really is a great film, great fun and action from start to finish. The limited special effects do not detract from the story (and indeed were not that bad for the day anyway). Surely a film that can bring you Bernard Bresslaw as a hired thug in a spacesuit can only be great?!

Santa's Christmas Circus (1966)

A somewhat awful little film in many ways though (unintentionally) funny in others.

The clown Whizzo (Frank Wiziarde), after much mild slapstick and messing about, finally gathers a group of children who sit around while he tries to entertain them and instil some Christmas spirit. To be honest they often look pretty bored and cough a lot (one seems to fart as well). Finally, Whizzo takes them to see Santa Claus (John Bilyeu) on a flying carpet (well of course). 

This is a strange film to be honest. Some of Whizzo's humour hasn't dated too well, though you wonder if it was that funny in the 1960s considering the audience reaction in the film! None of it really makes much sense. Maybe you shouldn't really expect it to?

The film has some nice footage of department store Christmas displays and a pleasing kitsch look and feel though at times will test your Christmas spirit. The real star of the film is the little girl who coughs throughout.

Carry on Christmas (1969)

The Carry On team do a Christmas Carol... and er... Frankenstein and Dracula for some reason.

Scrooge (Sid James) makes the life of Cratchit (Bernard Bresslaw) a misery. Scrooge is visited by the ghost of Christmas past (Charles Hawtrey) and present (Barbara Windsor). We then get a rather odd horror film pastiche involving Dr Frank N Stein (Terry Scott) and then a pantomime. It is all rather strange and all rather awful...

The script was rather uninspired and it seems thrown together very poorly. The only real humour is from the classic catchphrases from the likes of Sid James and Charles Hawtrey. 

Its a real shame as this could have been something special with most of the classic cast being present. Best enjoyed on Christmas night after half a bottle of brandy.

The Wonderful Land of Oz (1969)

Don't do drugs kids, you might end up making a film like this.

Evil Mombi (Zisca Baum) the witch threatens to turn young Tip (Chan Mahon) into a statue after he creates a man out of a pumpkin (George Wadsworth). He runs away with his pumpkin man to the Emerald City but gets mixed up in a military coup. Tip teams up with the Scarecrow (Michael R Thomas) and Tin man (Allen Joseph) to raise their own army against the revolution...

Where do we start with this film, it is all pretty awful. The sets are cheap and basic, the acting is mostly terrible (apart from Zisca Baum who is pretty good as a witch). If you haven't suffered enough then there are some dreadful songs too. 

Oh there is a badly made puppet cow head too. Its all pretty amazing, though mostly in a bad way.

Mars Needs Women (1968)

A rather bizarre science-fiction film, about the Martian need for Earth women...

Mars is dying due to reasons, the Martian Dop (Tommy Kirk) leads a team to Earth to find some suitable fertile females for breeding purposes. Dop announces this plan to the US military beforehand for some reason. Dop and his team begin selecting suitable females. Pole dancers and flight attendants seem to be the preferred choice (natch). 

However, Dop selects the female scientist Dr Bolen (Yvonne Craig) for his target and falls in love with her. The authorities are meanwhile searching high and low for the Martians...

This is a pretty awful film to be honest. The overall premise is sound perhaps though crudely implemented and overall the film is pretty sleazy and cheap. The story makes little sense of course and often is (unintentionally) hilarious.