Dick Tracy's G-Men (Serial) (1939)

Classic action serial starring Ralph Byrd as the top detective (though for some reason he is now in the FBI)...

The leader of a gang of spies Zarnoff (Irving Pichel) manages to escape his own execution thanks to a rare and exotic drug and continues his plan to blow up an ammunition convoy using a robot controlled bomb.

Tracy manages to foil his plan but Zarnoff remains on the loose and determined to wreak havoc and avenge himself on Tracy.

As it is a serial (and thus originally shown in short chunks of around fifteen minutes each) the action is fast moving with regular cliff hangers. The need for regular cliff hangers does make the plot a bit contrived and repetitive of course when watched in a single chunk.

It is a bit of a strange Dick Tracy story - in fact it is hardly Dick Tracy at all in many ways. There is no Tess Truehart in this tale for example but he does have a secretary called Gwen (Jennifer Jones).

A Fool There Was (1915)

A happily married lawyer John (Edward Jose) heads over to England to take up a new diplomatic job though without his beloved wife and child.

On the ocean liner he meets a "vampire" (Theda Bara) who is apparently notorious for seducing men with near hypnotic powers then sucking them dry of cash and driving them mad before moving onto the next victim. John shacks up with the "vampire", is he doomed?

So it's a bit daft though worth seeing as little of Theda Bara's work has survived, the original "vamp" girl had it all.

The Cowboy and the Bandit (1935)

Although not that original this is a decent Western B-movie. Bill (Rex Lease) starts off the film facing a lynching for buying a stolen horse, he is saved by local outlaw Scarface (Richard Alexander) and heads off for another state. There he bumps into a farm, the Bar X ranch, in trouble with the Larkin gang.

He takes a job with the farm but finds Larkin has the local law in his pocket, soon Bill finds himself with another lynch mob after him...

Bill is so straight forward and heroic he is almost a parody but he does a good role in this film, it's not a film with much in the way of shades of grey just good solid cowboy action. Blanche Mehaffey plays the sassy love interest at the saloon. Bobby Nelson plays the spirited kid who helps out Bill.

Bless This House (1972)

One of the many big screen spin-offs of British sitcoms, Bless This House was a family sitcom starring Sid James and Diana Coupland.

In this feature length story a new family (its Terry (Scott) and June (Whitfield)!) moves in next door and much hilarity ensues amid the 70s domestic suburban bliss...

Truthfully it's all rather corny and low in ambition, there arn't any big ideas or diversions which often happen in these sitcom spin-offs. There isn't really even much plot, its more like they took three sitcom plots and merged them together. Thankfully it is very funny and Sid gives his famous laugh with regularity.

The film mixes the TV Bless This House series with Terry & June and the result is Carry On Suburbia. Somehow it's brilliant!

Escape by Night (1937)

Nick Allen (William Hall) is a rather naive ex-miner who ends up getting drawn into a gangster war when he stops crime boss Capper Regan (Dean Jagger)'s gangster moll Jo Elliott (Steffi Duna) being kidnapped by a rival gang. Capper's gang end up on the run from the police and holed up in an empty house.

Nick discovers a neighbouring house owned by a blind man Pops (Charles Waldon) and his daughter Linda (Anne Nagel). They end up moving into that house and slowly learn the error of their ways amid the rural idyll and the purity of country life. Nick and Linda also fall in love. However when Capper returns for his gang things get heated...

It's all rather sentimental and naive (though not as naive as Nick is). The film is fairly enjoyable though meanders like a country stream once the gang hit the sticks. Duna has the best role as the cynical moll who wants to change her life but feels it's too late.