Rome Express (1932)

An enjoyable crime caper on board a cross-Europe express.

A group of passengers are heading off on a train in Paris for a trip to Rome. They are a motley collection of characters, including an adulterous couple, a film star trying to escape the limelight and a French police inspector. 

Aboard is a valuable painting which is stolen, this leads to murders (though not until some way into the film). There are, of course, many suspects! 

This is a fun film that takes place almost entirely on board the moving train. Neat little camera tricks and editing adds to the interest, though sometimes is a little too cute for it's own good. Conrad Veidt is excellent as the main baddie, exuding menace. Also good in the film is Gordon Harker as a very annoying man.

Passport to China (1960)

A rather tepid spy drama, as Hammer goes stereotype galore.

Don Benton (Richard Basehart) is a HK based businessman who becomes involved in a US government mission to retrieve secret information from the clutches of Red China rather reluctantly. Making his way to Canton, he tangles with Russian stereotype Kong (Eric Pohlmann) and tries to rescue agent Lola (Lisa Gastoni).

The film is an interesting view of 1960s Red China, including the war on sparrows (which backfired terribly) but the dated stereotypes are a bit jarring. The film is a bit too low effort though is watchable and the views of 60s HK is enjoyable.

Hearing Bernard Cribbins attempt a Portuguese accent is a joy.

The Third Visitor (1951)

A nice little, if sometimes a bit static, murder mystery.

After Richard Carling (Karel Stepanek) is found dead in his fancy house, Inspector Mallory (Guy Middleton) begins his investigation. There are a number of suspects as Carling was visited by a few people that night, but who was the last person to see him alive. And what is the dark secret behind who Carling really is?

The film can be a bit confusing at times, and also can get bogged down now and then. The story is good though and rewards the viewer's patience at some of the meandering early on as the dark secrets are gradually revealed. Everything comes together in the final act.

Some good performances, especially from Sonia Dresdel, add to the richness of the film. Not perfect but worth watching.

The Day They Robbed the Bank of England (1960)

A great example of the bank robbery film, maybe the ultimate attempted heist!

It is 1901 and the IRA needs money, so they decide the best way is to steal the British gold reserves held in the vault of the Bank of England! They employ Irish-American Norgate (Aldo Ray) to plan and carry out this audacious plan. 

Norgate befriends the captain of the guard at the bank Fitch (Peter O'Toole) to gain access (luckily Fitch is rather naive) to the bank and begins to formulate a plan to access disused drain tunnels under London and then break into the vault from underneath!

Although not an overly thrilling film, without that much action apart from the final act, it is very interesting film to watch. The gathering of information and forming the plan is very well portrayed and thought out.

The Silent Passenger (1935)

An enjoyable crime drama with some heavy use of the London North Eastern Railway.

Blackmailer Windermere (Leslie Perrins) is murdered by one of his enemies Camberley (Donald Wolfit) and stuffed into a trunk. Also looking for Windermere is Ryder (John Loder) who wants to stop his wife Mollie (Lilian Oldland) running off with Windermere! However, when he confronts "Windermere" whom he has never met he instead tangles with Camberley. 

Later on, the trunk and the body inside is discovered and Ryder is accused of murder, Camberley having framed him. Amateur detective Lord Peter Whimsey (Peter Haddon) is on hand to try and sort things out...

The film is mostly formulaic though has decent performances, including Haddon who plays Whimsey slightly irrelevantly. The final show down at a railway depot provides just enough peril to bring the film to a satisfying end.

The Brighton Strangler (1945)

A rather dark, if somewhat implausible, tale of murder in the dark streets during the Blitz.

Reginald Parker (John Loder) is a successful stage actor though he is starting to tire of his role as a murderer, the Brighton Strangler. 

When he is hit on the head during a bombing raid on London he has amnesia but a chance enounter unlocks a memory in his brain and he now believes that he is really the Brighton Strangler! He heads to Brighton and begins to kill for real...

A dark tale and the medical details are somewhat ridiculous, but the film is pretty atmospheric and well directed though the short film can drag a bit at times. The ending is particularly memorable.

Inspector Hornleigh Goes to It (1941)

The third and (unfortunately) final Inspector Hornleigh film.

Britain is at war and Inspector Hornleigh (Gordon Harker) wants to join the hunt for fifth columnists but instead he and Bingham (Alastair Sim) are sent undercover into the army to find out who is stealing army jam! 

However, soon Hornleigh is on the trail of suspected nazi spies, the trail leading to a suspicious dentist then an even more suspicious school and then a thrilling finale on a Royal Mail train...

It is a shame they never made any more Hornleigh films as Harker and Sim had great chemistry together and the film has a perfect mix of serious police work and humour. 

The Speckled Band (1931)

An early Sherlock Holmes talkie.

Sherlock Holmes (Raymond Massey) helps a young heiress (Angela Badderley) after the death of her sister and growing menace from her brutal step-father Dr Rylott (Lyn Harding). One mystery is that the sister's last words were "speckled band"...

A good Sherlock Holmes adaptation which is only marred by the poor quality of production at times, especially the sound. Holmes and Watson (Athole Stewart) are very well portrayed here but also pretty different to the popular series of Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone which would come in a few years time.

The Return of Mr. Moto (1965)

The Mr Moto character is bought back for this average crime B-movie, Henry Silva isn't bad in the role but he certainly isn't Peter Lorre.

Someone is blowing up oil wells in the Persian Gulf, and the friend of Moto (Silva) who is in the oil business is killed by a deranged ex-Nazi (Martin Wyldeck). Moto goes undercover (though his disguise is rather poor, but apparently enough to fool the foolish bad guys) to try and discover who is behind an audacious plan to control the world's oil supply...

A rather low-energy and cheap B-movie, it is a passable little film though can't be said to be that good. The story is slow and unexceptional that plods along without much urgency. 

Unfortunately this was it for the Mr Moto character on screen. One fun appearance is Antony Booth as a cowardly assassin.

Morning Departure (1950)

A gripping but ultimately bleak tale of a submarine in distress.

A Royal Navy submarine commanded by Armstrong (John Mills) heads off on a routine training mission. However, things go wrong when the submarine encounters a mine which explodes. The badly damaged submarine is trapped on the sea bed. Although the submarine is found by rescuers and some of the surviving crew escape, Armstrong and the last few including Stoker Snipe (Richard Attenborough) are trapped with no means of escape...

A tense drama, though a submarine will always give you that. Hope is dashed several times as the last survivors slowly realise that there will be not be a happy ending. A superb film.

Baffled! (1973)

A failed TV pilot becomes a pretty decent movie.

Tom Kovack (Leonard Nimoy) is a racing driver who begins to have intense visions during a crash. Occult investigator Michelle Brent (Susan Hampshire) thinks he is having a premonition of an American woman in danger in an English county house. 

Tom and Michelle track down the house (and thus the woman) and begin to uncover a Satanic plot to possess the woman's, Andrea's (Vera Miles), young daughter Jennifer (Jewel Blanch) for evil means... or just get Andrea's money.

This is a good film, though at times the story is a little disjointed which is probably why it never succeeded as a TV pilot. Remade as a film though the story is solid if a little too light to score as a horror. As a detective drama with a supernatural element it works a lot better. Nimoy and Hampshire had great chemistry together.

Seven Sinners (1936)

A fast moving romp across Europe, including multiple train crashes!

Harwood (Edmund Lowe) is an American private detective in Europe, he discovers a dead body in his hotel room but by the time the authorities turn up the body is gone! 

Insurance agent Caryl Fenton (Constance Cummings) joins Harwood for a new job in Scotland but Harwood is more interested in finding out what happened to the corpse! Not long after Caryl and Harwood are involved in their first train crash, but not before Harwood is reunited with the corpse, on the train!

A highly entertaining, witty and fast moving film, the two leads trading quips nearly as fast as the plot. The plot though may have a few holes here and there but it doesn't linger on any one scene long enough for it to really matter. The twist at the end is good too when the mastermind behind the mayhem is finally revealed.

High Flight (1957)

Young men want to join the RAF and fly the latest jets. However, the path to join the elite does not run that smoothly.

One of the cadets is Winchester (Ray Milland) who causes a stir by arriving at the cadet school in his girlfriend's plane. Although he is a little careless and a bit wild, the commander Rudge (Kenneth Haigh) lets him off. It turns out that during the war Winchester's father died after Rudge's own carelessness. Something Winchester junior is well aware of...

An enjoyable, if fairly predictable, film. It is enlivened by some decent performances by the leads and good cameos from Leslie Philips and John le Mesurier. There is also a bit of comedic relief provided by Anthony Newley who causes havoc with his radio controlled flying saucer! The real stars of the film though are the Vampires and Hunters, classic British jets from a bygone age.

The Hidden Room (1949)

An excellent Noir, wonderfully dark with building dread.

Psychiatrist Dr Riorden (Robert Newton) presents a calm, controlled face to the world but internally he is raging about his wife Storm (Sally Grey) and her cheating with young American Bill (Phil Brown). 

Riorden kidnaps Bill and locks him in a cellar. Every day he puts some more acid in a bath in the cellar, he tells Bill that one day he will kill him and dispose of his body parts in the acid! Storm doesn't know what has happened to Bill, neither do the police (Naunton Wayne). However, Storm's little dog proves to be an unexpected wrinkle in Riorden's plan...

So nothing that terrible has happened to Bill yet but we know what Dr Riorden's plans are. As Bill is quite a sympathetic character this does help build the horror nicely. Good performances by Brown and Newton are to be enjoyed. The real star though is Monty the dog!

Thunderbird 6 (1968)

The follow-up to the first, slightly disappointing, Thunderbirds film. Will this one be more FAB?

Thanks to the design genius of Brains, a new luxury airship lifted by anti-gravity and controlled by computer is ready for it's maiden flight. Lady Penelope, Parker, Alan and Tintin are the passengers for this maiden flight but things are already going wrong. The real crew has been replaced by imposters who plan to use Lady Penelope to lure International Rescue into an ambush so they can steal the secrets of the Thunderbirds.

Meanwhile, Brains is struggling with Jeff Tracy's demand for a sixth Thunderbird...

This is a better film than the first though again we don't see a huge amount of actual rescuing. The build-up to the criminal's plot is excellent and the plot works as a feature length film not an over long TV episode. Highly enjoyable though it is a shame that this was the end of the line of the classic Thunderbirds series.

Thunderbirds Are Go (1966)

A successful TV series hits the big screen, so often this can be a miss, but in the case of Thunderbirds they just about pull it off.

The mighty Zero-X rocket is about to head off the first manned mission to Mars but an agent from (well that is never established) causes the spaceship to crash. Two years later the replacement ship is ready to go to Mars, International Rescue is called out to make sure the agent can't cause another failure. The Thunderbirds and Lady Penelope manage to save the day.

But on Mars the Zero-X crew run into trouble from strange aliens. Finally, on their return to Earth the Zero-X malfunctions which means International Rescue are called out again to save the day. Alan Tracy ends up the hero after feeling a bit of a spare part earlier in the film, and having a rather weird dream sequence involving Cliff Richard...

The bigger budget has made the already superb looking Thunderbirds action and sets even more spectacular, however the story is a bit lacking and we could have done with a bit more of actual rescuing. We never even get to see Thunderbird 4! But it does the job, FAB!

Barbados Quest (1955)

Rare stamps are very valuable, and a target of criminals in this 1950s yarn.

Tom Martin (Tom Conway) is some kind of private detective (it is never made entirely clear) who is employed by a rich stamp collector who thinks the valuable Barbadian stamp he has bought is a fake. With the help of his old comrade Barney (Michael Balfour), Tom begins to unravel a complicated plot of counterfeit stamps, a lucrative business which the gang ring leader Blake (Brian Worth) is willing to kill for...

A fine little film, modest though well structured. Tom Conway, a veteran of the The Falcon series plays a very familiar role as a suave private investigator who skirts close to the line. His character here though, sometimes referred to the Duke, only made a couple of films of which this was the first. Not that original but a good watch.

Assignment K (1968)

A rather low wattage spy drama that unfortunately falls between two stools.

Philip Scott (Stephen Boyd) runs a secretive spy agency which manages to get results behind the Iron Curtain where the main Western agencies fail. 

However, while on a mission he meets Toni (Camilla Sparv) and falls in love. Back in England, an Eastern Bloc group of spies led by Smith (Leo McKern) use this connection to put pressure on Scott to betray his spy network...

This is a fine enough late 60s spy film but tries to be in the Bond and LeCarre styles simultaneously. Unfortunately, it fails at both and becomes bogged down in the middle act where not a great deal happens. The 1960s feel, and the Cold War espionage setting, are still enjoyable. The twists are also very good.

Uneasy Terms (1948)

A US style private detective tale but coming from Britain, and it just about works.

Slim Callaghan (Michael Rennie) is called to the country home of Colonel Stenhurst (Roy Russell) but he is murdered just before he can tell Slim why he wants him. There are a number of suspects including the Colonel's three daughters (including Moira Lester). The case involves inheritances, secret marriages and blackmail...

This is a decent enough crime drama though tries a little too hard to copy US hard boiled detective stories which sometimes fails to come across properly in a British setting. The story is complicated with plenty of sub-plots though the film can be a little static at times. The final fight scene is well worth sticking around, Slim knowing a bit of judo!

The Phantom Light (1935)

Mysterious goings on at a lighthouse off the Welsh coast.

Sam (Gordon Harker) turns up for his new job at an important lighthouse on the coast of Wales. He learns that one of his predecessors has been murdered, and another one has one mad after seeing a phantom light. With a growing number of people turning up at the lighthouse including Alice (Binnie Hale) and Jim (Ian Hunter) all of whom are not quite what they seem. A plot is uncovered to disable the lighthouse and cause a ship to be driven onto the rocks by a phantom light, for insurance purposes.

A fine film which has a number of layers and, despite a short runtime, the story is given time to build. The lighthouse setting gives the mystery a claustrophobic edge.