Flashman (1967)

Before they started taking themselves too seriously, super hero movies tended to be cheesy and fun. This Italian film certainly is both of those!

Rotten criminals in old London town steal the formula for invisibility from a (mad) scientist. The Kid (Ivano Staccioli) uses this new power to steal cash from a bank, though is foiled by Flashman (Paulo Gozlino) - a super hero who is also a member of the Royal Family! What makes things more complicated is that the stolen money is worthless, it was all counterfeit spread by a gang of gorgeous female forgers led by (Claudie Lange)...

This film is silly and makes little sense. The camp factor is high and the action is ridiculous, the invisible man scenes are often quite laughably poor. As long as you don't take it seriously then it is a fun, if at times a little too over the top, watch.

The Bunker (1981)

The last days of Hitler holed up in his bunker, an interesting way of portraying the events now incredibly well known due to the excellent 2004 movie Downfall.

The war is going badly, Hitler's (Anthony Hopkins) health is also not doing so well. With the Allied armies closing in on Berlin, the Nazi leadership retreats underground into the grim Fuhrerbunker. There, Hitler and his staff including Speer (Richard Jordan) and Goebbels (Cliff Gorman) await the inevitable as the explosions above gradually change from being caused by aerial bombers to artillery and tanks.

This is an excellent film, atmospheric and dark and based on the memoirs of the staff who survived. The most interesting stories are from some of the lesser known staff members in the bunker including the radio officer Misch (Michael Kitchen) and the engineer Hentschel (Martin Jarvis) who interestingly were both still alive when this film was made. 

The film might not have generated a million memes like Downfall (the Steiner rant is quite different here) but it very worth a watch.

Touch and Die (1992)

A complicated if not very exciting thriller.

Frank Magenta (Martin Sheen) is a investigative reporter who is looking into the candidacy of presidential hopeful Scanzano (David Birney). Scanzano is doing well in the polls but is running out of money. 

Magenta discovers that stolen plutonium is being used to raise funds for the campaign, a deadly conspiracy which leaves a trail of dead bodies behind (some due to radiation poisoning and other quicker methods). Magenta and his family including his daughter Emma (Renée Estevez) are also in the firing line...

This is a long drawn out TV movie and could have done with some editing. The story is fine and certainly well travelled taking in Rome, Paris, NY and ..er.. Africa. The story is interesting but too long winded to maintain much level of excitement. 

The Twelve Tasks of Asterix (1976)

The Gaulish comic hero reaches the big screen, with good effect, by Toutatis!

Julius Caesar's Roman legions have conquered Gaul, well all except a small village which is holding out against the might of Rome thanks to a magic potion created by their druid. This allows the villagers, especially our heroes Asterix and Obelix to defeat Roman attacks time and time again thanks to the super strength granted by the magic potion.

Caesar tires of the Gauls, whom some Romans call gods, and challenges them to twelve tasks a la Hercules. If Asterix and Obelix can complete all of the tasks then Caesar will surrender, if they fail then the villagers will become Rome's slaves...

This is a fun adaptation of the indomitable Gauls which stays true to the storyline on the whole and is very entertaining. An inventive story, i especially liked the bureaucratic task. Voice actors in the English version include Sean Barrett and Michael Kilgarriff and they do an excellent job. 

The Day the Sky Exploded (1958)

One of the earliest Italian science-fiction movies and truly isn't that good.

McLaren (Paul Hubschmid) is chosen to be the first astronaut into outer space in a multi-national mission. The launch goes as planned but soon disaster strikes and asteroids are sent hurtling towards the Earth causing disasters all over the world! 

The only way the world can be saved is by the West and the Soviets working together and using their nuclear arsenals for good...

The movie has some good ideas, and some of the plot points will re-appear in later films. However, this is all rather odd and poorly made and the poor special effects (though fairly standard for the time) are overly padded out with stock footage. The film is what it is, and is worth watching for the curiosity value and for the plot being quite novel in many ways.

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.

Atom Age Vampire (1960)

A rather squalid and awful little film.

Jeanette (Susanne Lorette) is an exotic dancer who is facially disfigured after a car accident. She is approached by Professor Levin (Alberto Lupo) and his assistant Monique (Franca Parisi) who have developed a ground breaking method to heal skin in their dingy little lab full of rabbits in cages and radiation. The method works but Jeanette, whom Levin has become obsessed with, requires regular treatments. Those treatments need the glands from murdered women. Levin commits these murders after he, for some reason, transforms into a weird looking beast...

A film that makes no sense, scenes end abruptly even mid dialogue and everything about the film is rather shoddy. The film is quite entertaining but mostly because of it's awfulness. 

Don't really expect any vampires, the confusing title is referred to in the English dubbed dialogue. The Italian title translates to Seddok the heir of Satan, which makes slightly more sense.

Rats: Night of Terror (1984)

One of a number of Italian Mad Max rip-offs, though this time the gang of raggedy marauders from the bad lands, in their beat up old vehicles, have to face... rats?

The group, led by Kurt (Ottaviano Dell'Acqua), arrive at a mysterious abandoned town that seems to be only inhabited by rats. They discover an underground science base with fresh food and flashy light bleepy tech. However, then the rats start to attack. In various gruesome ways too, the gang desperately battle for survival with their guns, tankettes and flamethrowers. Unfortunately as the gang seem to collectively have less brain cells than bullets the rats outwit them time and time again. Help is on the way, well they think anyway...

This really is a strange film, the gang really are inept. Characters like Deus (Tony Lombardo) and Duke (Henry Luciani) are pretty one dimensional and wouldn't last five minutes against the New Barbarians for example. Video (Gianni Franco) provides some moments of really strange humour. Violent, rather nasty and pretty weird.

L' Orgie Romaine (1911)

The hedonistic lives of the Roman Emperors (at least in popular imagination) have always been a rich subject for film. In this early film we follow the notorious Heliogabalus (Jean Aymé) as he indulges himself with a harem of women, boys and also lions!

Heliogabalus comes to a sticky end though when the Pretorian Guard finally tire of his cruelty and deviance. Live by the orgy, die by the sword as they probably never said.

A luscious film that certainly had no shortage of extras and fancy costumes. The camera is rather static and the acting frequently over dramatic but a good story is told none the less.

I Believe in Santa Claus (1984)

A Christmas movie with a bit of a difference. Simon (Emeric Chapulis) is sad for a number of reasons, including being bullied at school, menaced by the evil caretaker and because his parents are missing in Africa. He writes his letter to Santa asking for him to bring them back. When he and his friend Elodie (Alexia Haudrot) end up on a plane to Lapland, he gets to meet Santa (Armand Meffre) and ask him to help for real!

Santa goes to Africa (this isn't narrowed down any, let's face is "Africa" is quite a big place) with the Good Fairy (Karen Chéryl) - who also looks rather like Simon's teacher at school, must be a coincidence. Once in Africa, Santa and the Fairy discover Simon's parents are being held hostage by some rebels. To get them freed, Santa needs the help of some children with guns (yes this is a strange Christmas movie!) Meanwhile, in Lapland Simon and Elodie have wandered off and are about to be eaten by an Evil Ogre (Dominique Hulin)!

Although a bit odd at times, this is a lovely Christmas movie which doesn't overdo the saccharine. Karen Chéryl also provides a number of musical numbers in her various guises. 

Yor: The Hunter from the Future (1983)

A fantastic movie. Fantastically confused, fantastically cheesy and fantastically odd. But just fantastic. Yor (Red Brown) is a buff Conan-esque like figure with great hair who saves Pag (Luciano Pigozzi) and Kalaa (Corinne Cléry) from an unconvincing beast in a wild land of animal skins and axes. Yor is a bit of a lost soul who doesn't really know where he comes from, Pag and Kalaa (who takes a shine to Yor) tag on along with him on his vague quest.

He discovers another woman Roa (Ayshe Gul) who seems to have a similar ancestry to Yor, and also takes a shine to him to Kalaa's fury. Luckily Roa is soon despatched by some unconvincing ape men. Yor and company finally arrive at a mysterious island ruled by the Overlord (John Steiner). The movie then switches from a low budget sub-Conan action film to a low budget science-fiction romp as Yor discovers his parents were from outer space. Yor leads the revolt against the evil Overlord and his army of rather immobile robots...

A terrific film really, it might be all rather cheap and unoriginal but it is also very much fun. We have to wait a long time for the appearance of the main villain, the Overlord but he is worth the wait in all his Darth Vader cosplaying glory.

The Loves of Hercules (1960)

A hilariously bad sword and sandal tale. The wife of Hercules (Mickey Hargitay) is killed by the treachery of Licos (Massimo Serato) who blames his King (and who Licos kills as well). Hercules turns up wanting revenge but is faced by the King's daughter Deianira (Jayne Mansfield) instead. Hercules falls in love with Deianira (and thus seems to get over his wife rather easily!)

However, Licos is continuing his schemes as he wants the throne, and Deianira, for himself. He has Deianira's fiancé murdered and Hercules is blamed. Hercules goes away and gets entangled in the land of the Amazons and subject to Hippolyta's (Tina Gloriani) sinister lusts and is in danger of being turned into a tree...

The film is ridiculously campy nonsense with poor dialogue and acting, rather ropey action and mediocre special effects. The Hydra, which Hercules fights, looks a bit like a carnival float. However, the film is great fun and a complete cheese fest.

Tintin and the Blue Oranges (1964)

There have been a number of Tintin movie adaptations, the most well known being animations but this was the second of two live-action Tintin movies made in the 1960s starring Jean-Pierre Talbot as the young reporter. In this original story Professor Calculus (Felix Fernandez) wants to end world hunger. He is sent a blue orange from a fellow scientist Zalamea (Angel Alvarez) but this is stolen by thieves.

Tintin, Captain Haddock (Jean Bouise) and Calculus head to Spain to see Zalamea. Calculus is kidnapped to help Zalamea perfect the blue oranges by an Emir who wants the invention for himself...

It is a light film, fairly fun though sometimes a bit slow. The film includes a little too much silliness and gags which often don't quite work. What does make the film at least a bit enjoyable though are the main characters, Tintin and Haddock really do look like they have come to life from the pages of a comic book. Overall though it is a bit dull which is a bit of a shame considering how great the comics are.

La Grande Illusion (1937)

One of the best war films, though not a great deal of "war" takes place in it. Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) and Lieutenant Marechal (Jean Gabin) are French officers captured early in the First World War by Captain von Rauffenstein (Eric von Stroheim). Officers are shown respect and the French officers are sent to a fairly cushy prison camp where they are given a remarkable degree of freedom by the Germans. They use that degree of freedom to try and escape.

After being recaptured the officers are sent to a much tougher fortress where escape is much harder. By now von Rauffenstein, his body horribly mutilated by war injuries, is in charge of the prison. He takes de Boeldieu in hand, aristocrat to aristocrat. Marechal and the others he does not because of their humble origins. The two aristocrat officers muse on their ways coming to an end, the common man is rising no matter who wins the war.

Although a war film, it is as much - if not more - about class. However the subject is dealt with remarkable subtlety and nuance. The divide between the classes is stark, de Boeldieu has much more in common with von Rauffenstein than the other French prisoners but the film does not make them as villains, merely doomed players in the relentless passage of time in a fast changing world.

Ten Little Indians (1974)

A lush Agatha Christie adaptation. A group of strangers are mysteriously assembled to a remote hotel in the Iranian desert by U.N. Owen (Orson Welles), the strangers who include Charles Aznavour (who of course gives us a song), Richard Attenborough, Herbert Lom, Adolfo Celi and Oliver Reed - all discover they have been bought together under false pretenses by U.N. Owen (or Unknown).

Then a tape is played where Owen's voice rings out, he tells them all they have gotten away with murder. Then the guests begin dying one by one. Who is the murderer? Is it one of the guests? Will any of them survive?

Although not the best version of this story, a bit slow at times, the sheer amount of star power and the surroundings especially the Persian architecture makes this film highly watchable and enjoyable. It is dark and suspenseful as such a situation should be.

Kill (1971)

Quite simply the weirdest James Mason film I've ever seen. He plays an Interpol agent in this European co-production hunting down a rogue assassin who is killing heroin pushers. Well that sounds straight forward enough.

The thing is the film is rather eccentric, and suggests that copious amounts of recreational stimulants may have been involved in it's production...

The scenes in Pakistan especially involving Jean Seberg and Stephen Boyd score highly on the strange-o-meter. Especially as the latter wanders through Pakistani villages dressed head to toe in leather and no one bats an eyelid.

The film is odd and pretty surreal, and also very violent. Some of the action scenes are pretty good, especially the car-bike chase. But ultimately the film makes little sense and has rather a stereotyped view of life in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Definitely a film of it's time.