Police Patrol (1933)

Mack McCue (James Flavin) and Bob Larkin (Pat O'Malley) are a couple of detectives and rivals, they end up fighting over the same girl - gangster moll Lil Daley (Madge Bellamy) who is involved with the gangster  the detectives are investigating for murder. The detectives get demoted to the riot squad.

Meanwhile the daughter of the judge in the case gets kidnapped and there is blackmail too. Well it is all rather confusing but more or less makes sense.

The problem with the film is that it just isn't very exciting (until the final act) despite all of the above, everything is rather awkward, slow and stilted including most of the dialogue. However it isn't all bad, Bellamy is great. Really expressive as you would expect a silent movie star to be. The final act of the film has some action (at last!)

Top of the Bill (1971)

Before the TV and movie star, even before the radio and record star was the music hall star. This charming (and frequently rather odd) documentary celebrates the days of music hall, variety and vaudeville which even in 1971 was passing into fading memory (some of the members of the public with memories of music hall were in their eighties).

There is sadness as Ben Warriss and Ken Goodwin give us a tour of former music hall venues which are now bingo halls, shopping centres or even just piles of rubble. Also quite sad is when Ben interviews young passers by and they don't know who he is!

The memories are interspersed by example music hall acts by the likes of Sally Barnes, Charlie Chester performs as Max Miller and Ken Goodwin who does a George Formby impression. Not only has music hall now gone, but the London in this film is largely unrecognisable. Well it was indeed a lost world and it was wonderful.

The Sphinx (1933)

Someone is bumping off stock brokers, there is a suspect called Mr Breen (Lionel Atwill) whom an eye-witness claims was present at the scene and spoke to him... but doctors have proven that Mr Breen is deaf and dumb.

Jack Burton (Theodore Newton) is a reporter convinced Breen is somehow guilty but his fellow reporter and girlfriend Jerry Crane (Sheila Terry) is of the opposite opinion. Has she put herself at risk going to interview Mr Breen?

Yet another low-budget crime drama but this one has some interesting twists (though you will probably guess what is going on before the big reveal) and a great performance by Atwill. Some of the rest has been seen before though including the bumbling cops and wiseguy reporter who acts like he owns the place. Breen uses sign language though it doesn't seem very authentic and most of the time its off camera.

Double Cross (1941)

Double Cross is a middling crime drama, solid but unspectacular. Kane Richmond plays Jim Murray, a policeman whose friend Steve (Richard Beach) is killed during a raid on a nightclub owned by Nick Taggart (John Miljan) and Fay Saunders (Wynne Gibson) who double crosses Steve resulting in his death.

Jim vows to bring down the gangsters and engineers a dishonourable discharge from the police so he can join the gang and bring them down from within. The gangsters are tough though and have the mayor in their pocket...

Not a bad film but pretty shoddy and slapdash at times. Some of it doesn't make a lot of sense, such as when Jim tries to get a clandestine photograph of Nick and the mayor and uses a camera with a flash! Continuing on a photography theme look out for an early example of photo bombing!

The Mystery of Mr Wong (1939)

Collector Brandon Edwards (Morgan Wallace) has returned home with a sapphire stolen from China, the gem is said to bring doom upon the holder. Edwards indeed is killed during a game of charades, Detective Wong (Boris Karloff) is present at the party and witnesses the death, and begins the investigation.

The sapphire meanwhile has also gone missing, or rather stolen. The maid (Lotus Long) seems involved in the theft, but in the murder too? It seems she knows who the murderer was and gets bumped off herself...

Karloff was always a good turn, and his Mr Wong character was very enjoyable. A complicated murder mystery with typical Golden Age touches (large house, motley crew of suspects). Edwards' wife Valerie (Dorothy Tree) overacts to a hilarious degree.