Condemned! (1929)

A good early talkie. Michel (Ronald Colman) is a Parisian thief who has been sent to the brutal Devil Island prison. There is no escape the hard and unpleasant warden (Dudley Diggs) growls at the newly arrived convicts. The prison is between a jungle full of fever and the seas full of sharks...

The warden desires a house boy for his nervous wife (Ann Harding) and chooses the suave Michel. The nervous wife soon thaws for Michel but gossip reaches the warden who puts Michel in solitary and wants to send his wife back to Paris. Michel plans to escape... with her.

This is one of the better early talkies, not static as they often were. The plot is a little unbelievable though the leads give good though not flawless performances.

The Black Sleep (1956)

With it's list of veteran stars and low-budget setting (mostly taking place in a "castle") this film is a real throw-back to 1930s and 1940s B-movies. However, it isn't quite as much fun as it could have been. Dr Gordon Ramsey - yes really - (Herbert Rudley) is a condemned man in the Tower of London, who can hear the gallows being built. He is visited by Sir Cadman (Basil Rathbone) who gives him a mysterious potion which makes it appear like he has died and escaped the noose...

But really he is alive and now safe in Cadman's castle he learns of bizarre and horrific brain experiments. Cadman is experimenting on unfortunates, learning how to modify their brains. Some of his victims he has turned into horrific monsters, some violent enforcers (Lon Chaney Jr), raving nutcases (John Carradine) or mute servants (Bela Lugosi). Ramsey seeks a way to defeat Cadman, though in the end the biggest danger to the mad scientist comes from his own creations...

It has all the ingredients to be a great film, though can at times be a little slow. Chaney and Lugosi were rather underused in the film, a shame especially for the great Bela Lugosi as this was his last film. The film is well worth watching, just with a degree of regret.

La Grande Illusion (1937)

One of the best war films, though not a great deal of "war" takes place in it. Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) and Lieutenant Marechal (Jean Gabin) are French officers captured early in the First World War by Captain von Rauffenstein (Eric von Stroheim). Officers are shown respect and the French officers are sent to a fairly cushy prison camp where they are given a remarkable degree of freedom by the Germans. They use that degree of freedom to try and escape.

After being recaptured the officers are sent to a much tougher fortress where escape is much harder. By now von Rauffenstein, his body horribly mutilated by war injuries, is in charge of the prison. He takes de Boeldieu in hand, aristocrat to aristocrat. Marechal and the others he does not because of their humble origins. The two aristocrat officers muse on their ways coming to an end, the common man is rising no matter who wins the war.

Although a war film, it is as much - if not more - about class. However the subject is dealt with remarkable subtlety and nuance. The divide between the classes is stark, de Boeldieu has much more in common with von Rauffenstein than the other French prisoners but the film does not make them as villains, merely doomed players in the relentless passage of time in a fast changing world.

The City of the Dead (1960)

In the realm of horror films, the line between creepiness and cheese is often very fine. While not a bad film by any means, this film often walks this line very unsteadily. Nan (Venetia Stevenson) is a wide eyed naive student of the overtly sinister professor of witchcraft (from a historical perspective of course!) Driscoll (Christopher Lee). The prof persuades Nan to visit an obscure little town in Massachusetts to continue her studies of the black arts. Truthfully, Nan is the most naive person ever and despite the fact the town continually drowns in a sea of fog and is packed full of strange staring people she isn't put off at all...

Unfortunately for Nan, the owner of the hotel (Patricia Jessel) she is staying in is a (supposedly) long-dead witch. Nan is soon dragged off to an underground crypt to become a blood sacrifice. The witches, however, need another young maiden. They have their eyes on the grand daughter of the priest, Patricia (Betta St John). Meanwhile Nan's brother Richard (Dennis Lotis) has turned up in town looking for his missing sister...

The film is very atmospheric, almost to the point of self parody. The dark arts are to the fore in this film, and the film can be pretty dark at times. The ending of the film is great fun and ridiculous, if you like a touch of the macabre.

A Boy and His Dog (1975)

A strange and rather morally dubious film. It is 2024 and the world continues to suffer from the aftermath of World War 4. The world is a post-nuclear holocaust wasteland where people in rags fight over tins of peaches. Vic (Don Johnson) roams the wasteland with his dog... which he can communicate with telepathically. The dog, Blood (Tim McIntire), is infact quite witty... unlike Vic who has rather baser interests.

Vic is looking for food... and women to have sex with. If the woman arn't that keen... well Vic doesn't really care too much about that. Things get really weird when Vic is seduced and tricked by Quilla (Susanne Benton) into entering a strange underground world where he ends up getting used as breeding stock by people who have recreated small town America but wear white face paint...

So, in essence this is a film about a wandering rapist and his talking dog. Surreal and pretty tasteless though frequently compelling. Perhaps a little too weird to fully enjoy though worth experiencing.