Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914)

The first feature-length comedy film and also Keystone's only feature film. It is also the final Charlie Chaplin film in which he did not write or direct. 

Charlie (Chaplin) is a womanising city man who meets Tillie (Marie Dressler) and wants her to elope with him as her father is rich! This is just the start of Tillie's troubles though as Charlie runs off with her money and another money and Tillie ends up in jail! 

OK so the story doesn't sound very promising but the comedy is good at times, though personally i think silent movie comedies work better in shorter doses. To be honest this is a film that is more important historically than being all that enjoyable to watch.

Meet Boston Blackie (1941)

The first of fourteen Boston Blackie films made in the 1940s starring Chester Morris.

Boston Blackie (Morris), the famous former jewel thief, has arrived back in New York on the trans-Atlantic ocean liner. He tries to strike up a conversation with fellow passenger Marilyn (Constance Worth) but is rebuffed, but soon he discovers the dead body of a man who had been hassling her in his cabin! With Inspector Faraday (Richard Lane) keen to question him for some jewel thefts, Blackie gives the law the slip in order to pursue Marilyn.

He tracks her to Coney Island amusement park, amid the freak shows Marilyn is killed by some men. Boston Blackie now has to clear his name and unravel a complicated plot involving enemy agents and US Navy technology... and a man who pretends to be a robot.

The first in the series, not everything is as smooth as some of the other entries in the series, there is a bit less humour and charm by Blackie. The Runt is also played by a different actor (Charles Wagenheim). Rochelle Hudson plays Blackie's charming female assistant. This is an enjoyable B-movie crime romp though and you can see why it led to a lengthy series.

Spectre (1977)

A superbly campy Satanic horror romp by Gene Roddenberry. 

Criminologist and occult expert Sebastian (Robert Culp) and his friend Dr Hamilton (Gig Young) are hired by the rich Cyon family in England to investigate if Sir Geoffrey (James Villiers) has been possessed by demonic forces! Even before Sebastian leaves his home he is attacked by a demon, his flight over to the UK nearly crashes, this indicates that something is amiss!

Sir Geoffrey is sceptical about this though his sister Anitra (Ann Bell) and brother Mitri (John Hurt) are keen for Sebastian and Hamilton to continue. They discover an underground temple dedicated to the demon Asmodeus, later they also witness an energetic ritual. The true identity of the demon is quite a surprise...

This is a fun film though not without some flaws though this did start life as a TV pilot and was made into a feature film (with extra pagan nudity natch). 

The Shadow on the Window (1957)

An excellent Noir with some tasty detective work.

Little Petey (Jerry Mathers) witnesses something terrible happen to his mother Linda (Betty Garrett) and goes into a shocked trance. He is found wandering the roads when he is picked up. Now Petey is the son of Detective Tony Atlas (Philip Carey) and he tries to work out what has happened. Unfortunately no one knows where Linda is or what she was doing. In fact she is the prisoner of a group of thugs. As Tony begins a complicated investigation, the thugs begin to fall out putting Linda into even greater danger...

This is a good crime film with rising tension and a clever police procedural plot. The only flaw is the utter dopiness of the criminals but as we have seen in many films, if criminals were clever then they would probably never get caught!

Shadowchaser (1992)

Cheesy violent nonsense, this is either brilliant or terrible. Maybe both.

A hospital is seized by trigger happy terrorists who make hostages of some of the staff, what makes matters even worse is that one of the hostages is the President's daughter Sarah (Meg Foster). FBI agent Trevanian (Paul Koslo) has the architect of the building released from a prison where sentences are carried out in deep freeze (this film is set kind of in the future). 

Unfortunately, they release the wrong man and De Silva (Martin Kove) is really an ex-football star who has now been released into the hospital without much clue of what to do. He is kept busy trying to avoid being killed by the terrorists, one twist being they are led by Romulus (Frank Zagarino), a billion dollar android killing machine...

This is pretty chaotic, the plot is rather vague and makes little sense but it is... somehow brilliant. Action scenes are frequent and do not use one bullet when three thousand will do. Don't ask how it works but it does.