Corruption (1933)

Preston Foster plays Tim Butler, elected to mayor on a promise of cleaning up the city. The party led by Regan (Warner Richmond) get a bit put out when they discover that Butler was true to his word about exposing graft especially as some of the party supporters are in the firing line.

Butler is first framed with a prostitute and then apparently is guilty of killing Regan, though no bullet is found. A corrupt judge puts him away anyway. Butler is exonerated with the help of his secretary Ellen (Evelyn Knapp) after more corrupt figures are gunned down by a scientist called Volkov (Mischa Auer) with ice bullets.

Low budget and breezy but an entertaining film. There isn't a huge amount of depth, the corruption and the reaction to it being painted rather too broadly but Foster and Knapp make a nice pairing.

Theodore Rex (1995)

She's a cop! He's a... dinosaur!? This is a rather strange buddy cop movie starring Whoopi Goldberg... though one she tried to get out and had to be taken to court. It obviously doesn't show.

The film is set in a future where humans and human-sized dinosaurs co-exist. The film does genuinely look great, the world building and visuals are very well done. The film's problems are in the acting and story departments. Whoopi obviously doesn't want to be there and does the film on autopilot, most of the other actors do little better and without the excuse of a lawsuit hanging over them.

The story makes little sense but involves a mad billionaire who wants to wipe out mankind (natch). Whoopi and her tyrannosaur partner Theodore Rex (George Newbern) are hunting for someone who is killing off dinosaurs and it eventually leads to the big conspiracy...

So the film is awful but hilarious (usually unintentionally) and very worth watching, at least once. In the list of films so-bad-they-are-good this has to rate highly (or is that lowly?)

The Killings at Outpost Zeta (1980)

Although low-budget and frequently fairly shoddy The Killings at Outpost Zeta has some interesting ideas (though fairly similar to films like Alien) and some genuine suspense.

An elite team (including Gordon De Vol and Jacqueline Rey) is sent to a distant planet to find out what has happened to two earlier expeditions which are missing presumed lost. Once on Zeta the team discover a load of horrifically decomposing corpses and the team then start getting bumped off by a mysterious alien creature...

It is quite silly, and the sets look made out of tin and cardboard but it isn't that bad a film. One interesting aspect of the film is the acting, the actors frequently pause awkwardly and mess up their dialogue. Oddly the effect is quite realistic.

Cross-Examination (1932)

You can't beat a good courtroom drama and this is a superior example of the genre. It stars Don Dillaway as David Wells, accused of killing his father Emory (William Mong). David was about to be disinherited by his father (to be honest he was about to disinherit everyone) and when Emory is found dead David is the natural suspect.

H.B. Warner plays the defence attorney who does an excellent job though the case isn't blown open until David's mother Mary (Sarah Padden) turns up to tell the true nature of Emory and David.

The film takes place mostly in the courtroom with flashbacks to show the testimony of the witnesses. The courtroom scenes are excellent and tense, the whole film being well paced. The only problem with the film is that the case against David is actually pretty flimsy in the first place. The police don't seem to have done a lot of investigation and not found any actual direct evidence he did anything. Still the truth is out in the end.

Phantom from Space (1953)

A low-budget science-fiction romp. Flying saucers, aliens in strange suits et cetera. A UFO is spotted heading over the US but later disappears.

Lieutenant Hazen (Ted Cooper) is with the Federal Communications Commission investigating mysterious radio signals and comes across two men stricken by radiation. A survivor claims a strange man in a suit attacked them. A man with no head.

Later on more mysterious deaths occurred, explosions at an oil refinery and more radio interference. Unfortunately for our heroes (but fortunately for the budget) the alien is invisible outside of his suit...

It's a reasonable film though thats start off with little real action though does improve later on. There isn't much in the way of characterization (that is invisible like the alien) or much in the way of plot but it's not a bad film. One good aspect is that the female lead Betty (Lela Nelson) does more than just run around screaming. It also has a fair amount of suspense and some interesting "Invisible Man" type effects.