Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947)

Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome is a fun comic book adaptation. Gruesome (Boris Karloff) has just got out of prison and of course is looking for his next blag. He happens upon a crooked scientist (Edward Ashley) who has stolen a secret gas which can render people like stone for a short period. Such an amazing invention could benefit mankind in so many ways but of course it's used to rob a bank.

Enter our hero Dick Tracy (Ralph Byrd) to investigate whats going on and solve the crime amid a rather worrying amount of corpses. This is a fun film with plenty of corny comic book humour (names like Dr A.Tomic and a taxidermist called Y.Stuffem for example) and fast paced action. Not a huge amount of depth and a bit one-dimensional perhaps but highly enjoyable all the same. Boris Karloff is great in this film as a brutal and sinister criminal.

Hook, Line & Sinker (1930)

Hook, Line & Sinker is a hilarious comedy starring the Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey comedy duo. Wheeler and Woolsey are dodgy insurance salesmen who bump into Mary (Dorothy Lee) who has just inherited a run-down hotel and they invite themselves to help her out.

Not only is the hotel in need of some renovation but two rival gangs of criminals (one gang including Natalie Moorhead as a fake duchess) are trying to break into the hotel safe. Wheeler and Woolsey also fall in love with Mary and her mother (Jobyna Howland).

What follows is a complicated farce packed full of corny (but funny) wisecracks. Hotel situations have often been a rich source for humour and this film is no exception.

The Sin of Nora Moran (1933)

The Sin of Nora Moran is an extraordinary movie, a Noir drama told in non-linear manner with numerous flashbacks, the film is said to have been an influence on Orson Welles for Citizen Kane.

Nora Moran (Zita Johann) is a tragic young lady, her life hard and often brutal until she meets rising political star Dick Crawford (Paul Cavanagh) and finally she lives a happy life as his mistress. But then the darkness of her earlier life returns in the shape of her abusive ex Paulino (John Miljan). Later Paulino is found dead. Nora accepts the blame and goes to the electric chair. She didn't do it, but she has kept silent to protect the man she loved...

The film is truly avant garde, the story told through flashbacks, hallucinations, narrations. Of it's time it was truly ground breaking cinema. All the more impressive considering this was a low-budget B-movie.

The Haunted Castle (1921)

Despite the title this German silent movie is not really a horror or ghost story, instead it is more a detective story. A hunting party has assembled at the castle and waiting for the arrival of the Baroness (Olga Tschechowa), but there is an extra surprise guest. Count Oetsch (Lothar Mehnurt) who is suspected of killing the Baroness' first husband.

Needless to say the arrival of the Count is rather unwelcome. The Count protests his innocence. The film then establishes the truth through a series of flashbacks and dream sequences and a lot of talking (though via frequent intertitles). It is a rather static film though the story is interesting, it just takes an age to get going. One of F.W. Murnau's earlier works, and maybe he was still learning his trade. The likes of Nosferatu and Faust were to come.

The Copper Beeches (1912)

The only survivor of a series of short Sherlock Holmes films made in the 1910s which were supervised by Arthur Conan Doyle himself! The film stars Georges Treville as Holmes though there is no Dr Watson.

Holmes is bought in by a suspicious governess to investigate why the daughter of her employer has gone missing (she has been locked up in a shed) and why he wants her to look just like his daughter. A plot to deceive and kill the daughter's fiance is revealed.

The film is charming as a period piece though has some serious shortcomings. It is not really a movie but a pantomime performed in front of a camera. Scenes consist of a single shot with no apparent editing. The actors frequently speak (though we can't hear them of course as it is a silent movie) to the camera. Intertitles are also fairly rare and just punctuate major plot points. The film is a real curiosity, worth watching for itself though not a very good Sherlock Holmes film.