Transatlantic Tunnel (1935)

This is the near future (to the 1930s cinema goer anyway) and people live in an Art Deco fantasy world with videophones and fantastically pointy aircraft and cars. Richard McAllan (Richard Dix) and Fred Robinson (Leslie Banks) have devised a scheme to dig a tunnel under the Atlantic between England and America using advanced radium drills. Tunnels have already been dug under the English Channel and Caribbean but the Atlantic is another thing entirely...

While Richard works every hour he can his Ruth (Madge Evans) and child are neglected. Ruth even takes a job as a nurse looking after the ever growing number of sick and injured workers. Ruth herself is afflicted by the strange illness that affects workers and loses her sight.

But the project presses on, with Richard unaware of his wife's affliction or indeed anything else except for the tunnel. When his now grown-up son arrives on the site he barely recognises him. A big problem comes when they reach the mid-Atlantic ridge and the investors get jittery. The project must continue no matter the cost but for Richard the cost is so so high...

The tunnel sets look incredible, an Art Deco vision of the world how it could have been if two world wars had not shattered the Imperial dream.

Park Plaza 605 (1953)

Tom Conway is Norman Conquest (no really that's really the character name, he was a popular literary detective in the mid-twentieth century). He is a private detective who veers a bit far over the line between cheeky charm and annoyance. He gets involved in a quite frankly ridiculous plot involving Russians, stolen Nazi diamonds and murder basically by accidentally killing a pigeon carrying a secret message while playing golf with his assistant Pixie (Joy Sheldon).

The message is about a rendezvous in a hotel, naturally Conquest decides to go along and see what is going on. There he finds the lovely Nadina Rodin (Eva Bartok) who drugs Conquest and when he wakes up he finds himself accused of murdering a member of the Soviet trade delegation by the police in the form of Sid James...

A pleasant crime drama that trots along merrily enough without knocking down any doors. The humour could easily be ill judged but kind of works with this film which mixes dark and light story elements in an industrial blender. The resulting porridge isn't bad at all.

The Ghoul (1933)

A wonderfully sinister and atmospheric horror film. Professor Morlant (Boris Karloff) is an Egyptologist who has taken a valuable jewel which he believes grants eternal life. Aga Ben (Harold Huff) seeks to restore the jewel but the Professor dies before he can reach his dark mansion. The Professor insists on an elaborate burial in a tomb by his sour Scottish servant Laing (Ernest Thesiger) with the jewel in his hand. But someone steals the jewel...

As the Professor's friends and family Ralph (Anthony Bushell) and Betty (Dorothy Hyson) gather in the mansion the Professor appears to raise from the dead, however without the jewel he is a ghoulish zombie. Now intent on revenge on whomever stole the jewel...

The film has a creepy build-up followed by a rather frenetic final act with various capers including a burning tomb and some cops and robbers. The Golden Age fetish for the esoteric mysteries of the Orient are strong with this one. There is some good humour too and witty lines. One particularly enjoyable scene is where Betty's friend Kaney (Kathleen Harrisson) and Aga Ben hilariously send up the erotic desire for The Shiek.

For Ladies Only (1981)

John (Gregory Harrison) is a budding young actor with big dreams when he arrives in New York, dreams that prove very difficult to make a reality. As his career fails to get going he meets Stan (Marc Singer) who tells him there is a lot of money to be made taking your clothes off...

John thus joins Stan at ClubMax and becomes a smash hit stripping for women. He quickly eclipses Stan whose drug habit is taking him downhill fast. However his fame as a stripper is in danger of killing off his lingering hopes of becoming an actor...

A familiar story though in an unusual setting. It also has some interesting depth too, often films about strippers are an exercise in cheese and while the shows are outrageously over the top the acting performances really shine through.

The Last Duel (1989)

Alex Man plays a fishball seller who is always in scrapes with the police, and ends up getting framed for the manslaughter of a pregnant woman by a ruthlessly ambitious cop played by Karel Wong...

After 3 more years of prison Alex returns home to find his woman gone off to Australia and replaced by Rosamund Kwan (not that bad a deal) and his former underling Dicky Cheung is shacked up with an part-time prostitute.

Then the bad cop rapes his bro's girl and revenge is (of course) sought. But the bad cop has the law on his side (and no matter how much he bends the rules that seems to remain the case) and what does Alex have... well an illegal fishball concession.

It all ends up in an extremely violent and bloody showdown. Great action and a cool bad guy. But then again bad guy cops are always cool. The film is nothing new, it is merely a competent example of HK ultraviolence. There is a little too much violence though, a little more story instead might have been a good idea.