Drugs Are Like That (1969)

A bizarre little film warning children about the dangers of drugs. The film shows children indulging in normal childhood antics like building lego and stealing from the cookie jar and then the narrator Anita Bryant warns the viewer that "drugs are like that!". 

Basically anything you might do also be dangerous, we cut to a child swinging on a rope over water which snaps, and the child ends up drowning. Drugs are like that apparently!

So it is rather strange and rather weird. Whether it would stop anyone trying drugs is doubtful. You might feel you have dropped some acid after watching it.

Ninja Condors (1987)

A remarkably over the top ninja film (even by the standards of the genre!) As a boy Brian (Alexander Lo Rei) witnessed his father torn apart by motorbikes, but was saved by a cop. Now he is a man and part of a brutal ninja crime syndicate led by Lucifer (George Nicholas). However Brian's heart isn't really in all the killings involved and he is kicked out of the gang. Though next Lucifer orders him to be killed (which makes the decision to let him go in the first place a bit strange, but plot coherence isn't the film's strongest point).

Brian meets a guy called Eddie (Eugene Thomas) and they start a strange friendship. They also become targets for Lucifer's gang. Many many fights follow, including involving Lucifer's girlfriend (Mary Johnson). Eddie turns out to be a cop and using Brian to get the low-down on Lucifer's gang...

The action in this film is completely over the top with many ninja wire-fu stunts. The sheer insanity of the action really makes the film. There isn't a great deal of story, but there are quite a few decapitations and lots of throwing stars.

I Cover the Waterfront (1933)

Joe Miller (Ben Lyon) is an investigative reporter and the waterfront is his beat. He is convinced that Eli Kirk (Ernest Torrence) is smuggling in illegal Chinese immigrants (though sometimes they end up drowned!) However, Joe cannot get a lead on Eli and his editor is on his case. Then Joe discovers Eli's lovely daughter Julie (Claudette Colbert) and thinks he can get the information he needs through her. Love gets in the way of his plan...

An enjoyable film, Eli Kirk is a fascinating character who thinks nothing of throwing his human cargo overboard to their deaths if the Coast Guard are approaching. The romance between Joe and Julie flows very naturally, Claudette Colbert really steals the movie though. Any scenes she is in are dominated by her presence. All the mains have some moral ambiguities to some degree which adds some needed layers to what is, on the main, a standard tale of smuggling.

The Trouble with Women (1959)

Brad (Chet Davis) has a problem, and that is women. Pesky women ruining his lovely workplace. Some of them just want to get married damn it! Luckily Brad is given a talk by his friend in Personnel and finds out that (gasp!) women are actually good at their jobs after all! 

A rather dated and unintentionally funny public information film promoting gender equality. We've come a long way, though a long way still to go. Not quite as long a way as Brad needed to go.

The Crater Lake Monster (1977)

A very strange film indeed. A meteorite crashes into a lake awakening some kind of Lock Ness like monster (with some decent stop-motion animation) and begins to eat people. So far so good. However the film is made so badly with random sub-plots and weird characters. We have a couple of rednecks Arnie (Glenn Roberts) and Mitch (Mark Siegel) who hire out boats on the lake and seem pretty oblivious to everything that is going on around them. Their attempts at humour are as painful as being eaten by a monster...

Half way through the film we suddenly see a rather botched shoot out in a liquor store, what has this got to do with the rest of the film (apart from the fact the gunman eventually ends up another snack of the monster)? Why was this character added so late into proceedings? Like much of this film it doesn't really make a lot of sense.

The Sheriff (Richard Cardella) is a hoot, early on the film he seems the laziest cop in the world but in the end is willing to take on the monster on his own with a bulldozer and a handgun.

Not a good film at all, the acting is poor, the plot and pacing all over the place and continuity mostly missing. It is good fun though, camp nonsense. The monster special effects are not bad, especially for their day.