The Phantom Creeps (Serial) (1939)

A frenetic sci-fi horror serial. Dr Zorka (Bela Lugosi) is a mad scientist who wants to conquer the world using various mad science weapons he has invented including a rather bizarre looking robot and a new super-explosive made from a meteorite. The US government want his inventions for themselves but Zorka has other ideas...

So begins a crazy cat and mouse game as the FBI in the form of Captain West (Robert Kent) and a plucky young reporter (Dorothy Arnold) try and find out exactly what is going on and stop Zorka selling his inventions to foreign powers. The action comes thick and fast via regular cliff hangers including crashing planes (several), exploding electricity pylons and toxic chemicals.

Naturally it doesn't make a huge amount of sense and stock footage is liberally used, the exploding Hindenburg. The serial also seems to throw every sci-fi horror trope imaginable into the mix including invisibility. It is total nonsense but also total fun.

The Phantom of 42nd Street (1945)

A great detective film set in the crazy world of the theatre. A mysterious killer is bumping off people linked to an old theatre company led by Cecil Moore (Alan Mowbray). Tony (Dave O'Brien) is a theatre critic who is on hand when the first murder takes place and reluctantly agrees to report on the murder. As the crimes continue he gets more involved with the case especially as he has taken a shine to Cecil's daughter Claudia (Kay Aldridge)...

Along with his taxi-cab sidekick Egbert (Frank Jenks) he runs around backstage searching for the dark secret in the past which has sparked the murderous spree...

Low budget certainly but a high quality crime film all the right ingredients (multiple suspects, keen amateur detective, bumbling cops) to make for a solid Golden Age type drama. As the film is set in the world of theatre where the actors could ham it up superbly especially in the climatic Julius Caesar scene.

Crazy Blood (1983)

Olivia Cheng plays a social worker married to a police photographer. They have one son upon whom the husband (Eddie Chan) dotes on to an almost unnatural degree whilst she is busy saving the lives of the teenage tearaways in her care...

The streets of Hong Kong never looked so dark (literally - there looks like there was not much budget for lighting so often its hard to see what's going on - and morally). Rape, arson, prostitution, violence, drug taking... seem endemic on the mean streets of Kowloon!

A tragic string of events that starts off with a brutal rape leads to the death of Eddie's and Olivia's son and then Eddie goes - well crazy. He starts to kill off his wife's clients using various methods such as apartment window assisted projection.

As the film continues he becomes more and more insane, in the end wanting to kill himself and Olivia as he thinks his dead son is lonely and is waiting for them. The ending is a bit unsurprising though rather gore splatter-tastic.

A recommended little horror gem from the early 1980s. Don't expect a barrel of laughs though.

Tarzan's Revenge (1938)

A middling jungle romp. Eleanor (Eleanor Holm) is on a trip to Africa with her parents and her fiance (George Meeker), who is a bit wet though likes shooting animals with his rifle. The local sultan Ben Alleu Bey (C. Henry Gordon) likes the look of Eleanor who fancies adding a feisty American woman to his harem...

Tarzan (Glen Morris) also takes a liking to Eleanor when he finds he stuck in a pond. Nobody believes Eleanor when she tells the others about Tarzan. However their paths soon cross again...

Not the best Tarzan though, he acts rather childish and barely says a word. However as Morris was a former Olympic decathlete he certainly had the physique! Eleanor makes the film though, which is just as well as there isn't a great deal of acting going on from anyone else. Expect dated stereotypes, animal exploitation and a rather thin plot. It shouldn't be taken very seriously.

To Live (1994)

The Cultural Revolution, one of the most terrible and bloody periods in history, is recalled in all this horror in this masterpiece starring You Ge and Gong Li. They are a couple who start off quite wealthy but lose everything due to You Ge's gambling as China is shattered by military conquest and then civil war. Reduced to the status of peasants they have to fight to survive, to live, in Mao's China.

The couple and their childrens' lives and experiences are used to show how China changed under Mao, with communist propaganda affecting everyday life, collectivisation and later the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. This final act results (in a round about way) in tragedy...

Great events are sometimes best told through the eyes of normal people at the bottom of society as is the case with this film. Sometimes you wonder how people can survive such hardships, to live. These people did.