Till Death Do We Scare (1982)

The first few minutes of Till Death Do We Scare are among the funniest in movie history, thats if someone getting crushed by a steamroller (with the film then cutting to the funeral with a totally flat coffin) is enough to make you laugh. Hey it worked for me.

After that the film meanders a bit too much to truly be considered "winning" though the ending is fairly exciting with some nice ghost monster touches. There probably wasn't enough script for a whole movie but the good start and decent ending make the film worth watching.

Till Death Do We Scare stars Olivia Cheng as a three-times widow who is wooed by Alan Tam.

Olivia's three deceased husbands (present as ghosts) want her to be happy and stay alive to maintain their legacy so try their best to get Olivia and Alan together and then, as they fear Alan will also die soon after marriage, do their best to try and split them up. Alan's sidekick Eric Tsang gets scared by a chair and menaced by the Ghost King's daughter playing the fall guy for a lot of the jokes as he does so well.

Its often quite hilarious and also pretty stupid, like many other HK comedies of the period. The comedy is goofy and slapstick though at times highly inventive. As a horror film it works too sometimes, the horror is quite frightening though at other times utter cheese. It isn't perfect by any means but overall it is worth persevering with.

The Black Gestapo (1975)

The Blaxploitation genre film often employed some really quite strange ideas but maybe one of the oddest was in The Black Gestapo. It starred Rod Perry as a black gang leader who forms an army to defeat the mob in his neighbourhood (and who are basically busting his ass). He is usurped by one of his officers (Charles Robinson) who uses Nazi methods and techniques to strengthen his grip on the city.

Funky Jive talking Nazi stormtroopers then, you wouldn't get away with that kind of thing these days - and it is a wonder they did in 1975 to be honest!

So is the film any good? Not really, it is all rather shoddy with numerous poorly choreographed fight scenes and gratuitous nudity. The sheer weirdness of the premise of the film is the only real reason to see it. Well it is enough I suppose.

Behind The Screen (1916)

Charlie Chaplin is a hapless stagehand at a busy (and chaotic) film studio where multiple films are being recorded at once. Of course much slap stick mayhem ensues.

Things get even more confusing when a girl (Edna Purviance) who failed to become an actress gets a job at the studio dressed as a man and Charlie falls in love with him... er her much to his tyrannical boss' disgust.

Great comedy short with good use of props and visual humour and not just people being being spanked or falling over... and an early attempt at a satire on the movie making business.

The Body Vanished (1939)

A fun little quota quickie involving art theft and a murder (or not as the case turns out to be) in a country house (of course).

The film stars Anthony Paine as an Inspector from Scotland Yard who just happens to be around when a crime is committed, his friend C. Denier Warren is a reporter who of course wants the scoop. Ernest Sefton plays the local police sergeant who does his best to portray the dopey local law. The two latter characters provide the comic relief to Paine's smooth detective.

It does not have the most complicated of plots but has some interesting ideas all the same. A couple of red herrings are sprinkled throughout to keep you guessing (involving Wilfred Noy as the butler and Evelyn Foster as a wannabe secretary). The climax of the film takes place in an auction which is quite unusual. Not a bad little film at all.

The Ace Of Spades (1935)

You could call this a political drama as the setting is the run-up to an election but really it is a jolly detective drama with plenty of Golden Age touches (most of the action takes place at a country house et cetera).

At times silly and frenetic the story involves the accidental death of the Lord of the manor and a political candidate (Michael Hogan) thinking he was to blame... as does someone else blackmailing him.

Well we know "who dunnit" already but the mystery involves the identity of the blackmailer. The title? Well various Ace of Spades playing cards get defaced.

It is not really what you would call a deep drama but it has a good cast ensemble including Dorothy Boyd and Geraldine Fitzgerald and various amusing comedic touches. Overall the film is a good watch, after all it has the planning application for a railway line as a major plot point, and how can any film that includes such a thing not be well worth your time?