A Quiet Street (1922)

One of the Our Gang series of comedy shorts made by Hal Roach featuring a group of children called The Rascals who get up to various slap stick fun and naughty antics. In this edition the kids (including Jackie Condon, Mickey Daniels and Ernest Morrison) think they are in trouble with the police after beating up a policeman's son who had been bullying Jackie. However, the police really want to warn them about a real criminal called Red Mike...

A fairly charming film (the amount of charm will depend on how much you like children or not!) The film is at it's best early on when the kids don't have much to do and fill their time with innocent(-ish) kids stuff. This gives the film a bit of a nostalgic air.

History of the World: Part I (1981)

Perhaps the best Mel Brooks movie and one of the funniest films ever made. Mel takes us on a very individual spoof tour through history from cavemen through to the Roman Empire and the French Revolution. Each segment has a plot of sorts though the film is more a series of comedy shorts held together by the same actors. Mel (who plays characters as varied as Moses, Torquemada, King Louis XVI and the Piss Boy!) is joined by the likes of Gregory Hines, Dom DeLuise, Madeline Khan and Spike Milligan plus many more.

Highlights, well there are many. The Roman Empire and French Revolution segments are the longest and have the most gags including the Count de Monet who is always furious at people saying his name wrong, Nero at Caesar's Palace (actually the real Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas), Judas at the Last Supper and Moses dropping one of his stone tablets (so that's why there were ten rather than fifteen commandments)...

Although the film is listed as Part 1 there was no sequel. We do have a pseudo trailer for that film though to close things out, including Hitler on ice and Jews in space! A very silly film full of obvious visual gags and weirdness. A complete and utter laugh riot.

Black Sunday (1977)

Terrorists are seeking to hit the US hard, as their plan is turning the Superbowl into a bloodbath it doesn't get much harder than that!

Dahlia (Marthe Keller) has concocted a plan with embittered ex-US POW in Vietnam, Lander (Bruce Dern) to explode a bomb full of metal darts from a Goodyear blimp above the crowded stadium...

Mossad in the tough form of Kabakov (Robert Shaw) are already on Dahlia's case though and seeking to discover her plan and stop her before it's too late with the help of Corley (Fritz Weaver) from the FBI. Kabakov also has to try to avoid being killed by the ruthless and deadly Dahlia beforehand...

A tense film. The film is quite long but this helps to show the intricate planning which needs to take place to carry out an atrocity of this scale as well as the dark psychology of terrorists who regard their own lives as expendable for the cause. A brutal and violent film, it's only let down slightly by some of the effects in the finale but the action overall is very well done indeed. 

Beau Ideal (1931)

A tale of the French Foreign Legion and fighting dervishes in the desert, often key ingredients for a good film though this isn't one of them. This is a sequel to the earlier film Beau Geste, in it Otis (Lester Vail) heads off to the African desert to tell his boyhood friend John Geste (Ralph Forbes) that Isobel (Loretta Young) is the one she loves. Alas, John is in disgrace and is now a prisoner in Morocco, and Otis ends up in the same deep pit. However, it is ages before John and Otis realise this. John and Otis manage to get out of prison with the help of the Arabian princess Zuleika (Leni Strengel) and then have to fight an evil Emir (George Regas) to clear their names...

So, a tale of deep friendship amid betrayal. Unfortunately the film has very stilted and awkward dialogue as with many early talkies. It also gets off to a rather slow start with a seemingly endless and heavily overacted scene in a prison pit before the story gets going. The plot at times is hard to take seriously, Otis heading off to Africa to find a man whom he has not seen for years and doesn't even know what name he now uses, and yet they end up in the same prison! The desert scenes are suitably magnificent, the fighting scenes are fine but the film really isn't very good.

The Adventurer (1917)

A typical Charlie Chaplin comedy slapstick short. The tramp has hit hard times by now and is a convict! After much mayhem in some sand dunes, he manages to escape prison. Charlie then saves a girl (Edna Purviance) from drowning and is invited to her home. His new status as a hero makes it easy for the authorities to track him down of course!

Well this is classic Chaplin, a number of ingenious comedy set pieces. This is one of the best of his early films. It maybe lacks a but of depth but doesn't lack for humour.