The first Hammer horror to star Christopher Lee as Dracula, of course there would be many more to come. Harker (John Van Eyssen) arrives at a mysterious castle to take up his new role as the Count Dracula's librarian. However, he is really there to hunt vampires... Dracula to be precise. However, he fails to defeat Dracula and becomes yet another victim.
A little later Harker's friend and colleague Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) discovers Harker's diary and then Harker himself, now a vampire too. Van Helsing puts a stake through Harker's heart but Dracula himself is nowhere to be seen. Van Helsing meets the family of Harker's fiancée (Carol Marsh) who is ailing. She is also a victim of the evil Count. With the help of Holmwood (Michael Gough), Van Helsing battles to stop Dracula once and for all...
This is a truly great Dracula film, one of the best. Lee's impressive physicality adding extra menace and eroticism to the dark Count.
He is invited down to the country house where Laura lives with other family members (who are all odd in their own ways). Bob suspects he knows who the blackmailer is though it is quite obvious he is being manipulated by Laura, unfortunately for Bob he gets endlessly distracted by bored housewives and ends up in various uncompromising positions...
A confused film though not unentertaining. It is a saucy sex comedy though the sex is pretty tame and barely erotic (though the film has plenty of nudity) and the comedy is sometimes suspect and often falls flat. It is all very politically incorrect nowadays of course though that is no bad thing. It certainly has plenty of stars in it including Diana Dors, Harry H Corbett, Ian Lavender and Adrienne Posta. Probably the best part of the film is when Bob goes to a police station and he passes Police 5's Shaw Taylor!
With the war ongoing, both the British and Germans are in need of money, Luckily there is a fortune in diamonds to be found in a lost city of Africa. Evil Nazi agent Lola Pagola (Maud Adams) and her bumbling assassin Heinrich (Jasper Carrott) are sent to Africa, the British send The Colonel (Robin Bailey), his servant Tombs (Graham Stark) and Jane (Kirsten Hughes)...
The British leg of the expedition gets off to a bad start when their plane crashes due to Nazi scheming, but they are rescued by the hunky American Jungle Jack (Sam Jones). He claims expert knowledge of the African bush though this often seems a bit suspect. When they finally find the Lost City it is ruled by the Leopard Queen (Elsa O'Toole) who is more a bit of a Sloane Queen and longs to get back to Blighty, ok ya?!
The film is complete farce, overall not the funniest of films but as an adaptation of a comic strip it works really well and it has it's moments. The cast let the film down a bit with some indifferent performances, if the film had been made by the Carry On team - for example - it would have been hilarious. As it is, its perfectly passable.
The gimmick in this Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy comedy short is that Stan and Ollie are married to each other's sisters - who just happen to look exactly like their brothers except for the voices. As their joint first wedding anniversary (yes of course they got married on the same day!) is today they hold a dinner party. This quickly descends into chaos and a destroyed cake (or two). The two wives don't really like each other...
A simple thing with good slapstick and classic Laurel and Hardy interactions. Although not the best of their comedy shorts, this is a good bit of fun. The only annoying bit is Mrs Hardy's voice which is terribly high pitched. The actress who provided the voice, Carol Tevis, also provided the voice for the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz!