Sin Takes A Holiday (1930)

Oh the morals of the fabulous people of late 1920s New York, cheating and divorcing left right and centre apparently. Constance Bennett plays a dowdy secretary to a womanising divorce lawyer (Kenneth MacKenna). They form a marriage of convenience to help Kenneth avoid marriage to his mistress though Constance secretly loves him for real.

Constance gets sent off to Paris so Kenneth can continue his cheating ways, there she is seduced by Basil Rathbone and a bit of European sophistication. She undergoes a bit of an Eliza Doolittle transformation before she returns to New York and confront her husband.

It's an enjoyable little film, some of the characters are a bit annoying but there enough good lines in this romantic comedy to keep the interest. There are some enjoyable supporting parts such as that of ZaSu Pitts. The three main leads, especially Constance who is appealingly sardonic throughout, shine. The snapshot of late 1920s/early 1930s life is fascinating.

The Top Bet (1991)

No one can make films about gambling quite like HK cinema used to, often giving a mystical bent to it.

The Saint Of Gamblers has gone off on holiday which is inconsiderate as the Triad boss needs a top gambler to win the gambling championship. Uncle Ng Man-Tat is tasked to find someone to win or he gets the chop (literally).

He happens upon the Queen of Gambling (Carol Cheng), basically a tough HK fisherwomen who does some card tricks. She pretends to have magical gambling powers in order to get the money to help her paralysed brother. Still with me? No? I'm not surprised.

Meanwhile real magical powers arrive in the shape of the Saint's sister Mai (Anita Mui) from the mainland but she refuses to use her magical powers to help gambling and capitalist imperialist activities (this was before the Mainland Communist Party discovered the love of cash of course). But then, with the Triad's rival is also getting help from psychic power, Mai decides to help the Queen in her battle against the bad guy with the help of magical card tricks and plenty of kung fu.

If you've seen a HK gambling movie before you know what to expect. Grand entrances in slow motion, sharp suits and stirring music. Plus a lot of slapstick humour and fun. Its ridiculous, its bizarre, its pretty banal. But you'll love it.

Cat-Women of the Moon (1953)

A low-budget science fiction B-movie which was filmed in 3-D (though does not seem to really take a great deal advantage of the extra dimension). The plot is simple: Earth sends a rocket to the Moon, discovers ancient race of Cat-Women who want to steal the rocket and enslave Earth. The film is complete nonsense of course though campy fun.

The Cat-Women (heavily made up in black jumpsuits) are able to control women but not men, luckily one of the human crew is female (Marie Windsor) whom they are able to manipulate. Can the humans led by Sonny Tufts and Victor Jory foil the plans of the Cat-Women led by Carol Brewster?

Well yes of course but a lot of the film is absurd, starting with the ridiculous interior of the spaceship with wooden tables. The Moon seems to reuse familiar science-fiction tropes including giant spiders and the Cat-Women City looks like the reused set from another film. Well you can have a lot of fun with this tripe to be honest. I did.

Repeat Performance (1947)

Repeat Performance is a late 1940s Noir with elements of fantasy. It stars Joan Leslie as actress Sheila who at the start of the film is standing over the dead body of her husband (Louis Hayward) holding a gun.

It is New Years Eve and Sheila is distraught, at the stroke of midnight she wishes the dark turn of events that led to the death of her husband could not have taken place and she could re-run the year. Her wish comes true.

Once she realises what happens she tries to change the events that led to her husband's death but finds that some things are just fated to happen. The film is melodramatic and has an appealing inevitability about events with some terrific performances from Leslie and Hayward.

The Monkey's Paw (1948)

The Monkey's Paw is a rather slow horror film involving a cursed monkey's paw that grants it's owners three wishes before extracting a heavy price. The paw is reluctantly sold by a dealer who fears the bad luck it could befall it's owner (not including himself though strangely).

The story is good though the production is rather low budget. It is still an enjoyable film once things get going (the problem is it takes a long time getting going). The paw ends up owned by a shop keeper (Milton Rosmer) with crippling gambling debts. He decides to use the wishes granted by the paw to solve his problems but finds the true cost very high.

Some parts of the film don't really make sense though, the Irish poacher Kelly (Michael Martin Harvey) recoils in horror from the paw one minute then pinches it not long after. Don't expect dramatic horror thrills (though do expect some ridiculously low budget speedway scenes). Do expect a fair bit of creepiness... once things finally get going.