The Avenging Hand (1936)

An intriguing crime caper. Lee Barwell (Noah Beery) is a Chicago gangster over in London on holiday. He gets involved in (or rather blunders into) a plot to steal a lot of cash which includes a hapless match seller who is to look after the key to a safe where the loot is. When the match seller is found dead Lee decides to find out the killer...

The film is basically a low-budget whodunnit which takes place in a posh hotel. Lee the gangster starts off wanting to take the loot for himself but becomes the good guy very quickly when the match seller, who be earlier befriended, is bumped off and turns detective. Along with Pierre (Louis Borel) and Gwen (Kathleen Kelly) he brings the criminals to justice. The plot is a fairly standard mystery with a few clues like scented cigarettes thrown in, there is also a degree of farce.

The plot is actually fairly mediocre, and not without a few holes, but Beery's performance as one of the most unlikely detectives on screen completely makes the film. The dialogue is sharp and not without some humour.

Fear in the Night (1972)

An assured horror film that doesn't mind taking it's time to set the scene.

Peggy (Judy Geeson) is recovering from a nervous breakdown and thinks she had been attacked by a man with a mechanical arm. Now married to Robert (Ralph Bates) who works at a boarding school she moves in and encounters the rather sinister headmaster (Peter Cushing) and his even more sinister wife Molly (Joan Collins)...

Peggy is attacked again by a man with a mechanical arm though Robert doesn't believe her. Is she imagining things? Why is the school so strange and eerie, is it even really a school?

This is a psychological horror film full of suspense with a rather interesting twist.

Laser Mission (1989)

Incomprehensible low-budget action nonsense. Michael Gold (Brandon Lee) is a mercenary sent to recruit Professor Braun (Ernest Borgnine) who is an expert on lasers. The CIA want to keep his knowledge safe and stop terrorists blowing airliners out of the sky with lasers (obviously the CIA want to be able to do that themselves)...

Gold is sent to... well who really knows... it could be Africa, it could be Latin America it could be a film set which oddly mixes both. There are plenty of Cubans and Russians around but none of them can shoot straight, except Colonel Kalishnakov (Grahem Clarke). Gold meets up with Alissa (Debi Monahan) who is supposed to be Braun's daughter but also seems incredibly handy in a fight. Endless shoot outs and chase scenes across the desert thus follow...

It is terrible but strangely compelling at the same time. The fight scenes are so bad that the cannon fodder bad guys often drop dead even before the heroes start firing. The meagre plot is stretched so thinly that half a dozen pointless action scenes had to be inserted to fill the film out. Oh and the dialogue is frequently awful. And this is why it is brilliant obviously.

Murder at the Baskervilles (1937)

Twenty years after solving the case of the Hound of the Baskervilles Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Wontner) and Dr Watson (Ian Fleming) return to visit Sir Henry Baskerville (Lawrence Grossmith), this time for a holiday. However there they get drawn into a double murder case and the theft of a champion race horse...

Sir Henry's horse "Silver Blaze" looks set to win the big race and bankrupt the bookies, one of whom enlists the help of Professor Moriarty (Lyn Harding) to nobble the nag. The stable boy guarding the horse is killed and the horse stolen. However later Sir Henry's man Staker (Martin Walker) is also found dead on the moors...

Although the story runs at a steady if unspectacular plod rather than a gallop this is a pleasing Sherlock Holmes film which slowly winds it's way up to an exciting conclusion. There are a few red herrings thrown in but Holmes soon is in control of the case. Wontner plays Holmes very well abd certainly looked the part. A good little crime film that makes the most of it's low budget.

Sink the Bismarck! (1960)

An epic war film. World War 2 could not be won at sea by the British but it could be lost, just as in the case of World War 1 and Jutland. So when the most powerful German battleship Bismarck prepares to head out into the Atlantic the Royal Navy must stop it at all costs...

And the cost is high, especially to the iconic (though ageing) HMS Hood. The cost could also be high to Captain Shepherd (Kenneth More) in charge in the Admiralty war room. His son, a gunner on a plane, is missing and he is under pressure to find the Bismarck. Such is the pressure that even his stiff upper lip wobbles a bit at times. His assistant Lt Davis (Dana Wynter) is there to support him.

On the Bismarck mad Nazi Admiral Lutjens (Karel Stepanek) - a somewhat inaccurate depiction of the real man it should be said - cares not for human lives, just for glory for the Reich. The Bismarck makes the Atlantic but thanks to an attack by Swordfish torpedo bombers ends up damaged and unable to flee. The RN battleship King George V closes in for the kill...

Although obviously using models, archive footage and filming aboard real warships the sea battles are fantastic. This is one of the best naval war films ever made. The sheer inhuman ferocity of modern warfare has seldom been as brutally portrayed.