Down to the Sea (1936)

Underwater adventures hunting for ..er.. sponges.

Greek immigrant fishermen risk their lives to dive deeply to get sponges off the sea bed in Florida. The fishermen are split into two groups led by John (Russell Hardie) who shallow dives and the deep divers led by Steve (Ben Lyon). 

The two groups are thrown together by bad weather and a dispute over fishing rights. A love triangle also forms between the two fishermen with Helen (Ann Rutherford).

It is a fine enough little drama, nothing too offensive or overly exciting if we are to be honest either. The plot has some interesting aspects to it including some of the dangers of deep diving, this makes it a worthwhile watch.

City Limits (1984)

A rather strange post-apocalypse tale involving young people on bikes battling a corporation.

A plague wipes out the vast majority of the world's adult population, now a few years later the almost grown up child survivors control the remains of the cities in violent motorbike gangs. 

In the countryside, Lee (John Stockwell) gets bored of being on the farm and heads into the city for adventure. He aims to join one of the gangs and soon proves his worth but a mysterious corporation fronted by Wicking (Kim Cattrall) is trying to take over the city and use the gangs for their own nefarious ends.

This is a rather low budget and fairly generic post-apocalypse tale, everyone is in cheap Mad Max cosplay gear and nothing really makes a lot of sense as the plot is largely missing. It isn't a dead loss though, it does have some interesting ideas including the importance of comic books in a new society that has grown up from children.

A Close Call for Boston Blackie (1946)

Another Boston Blackie film, although high on humour the crime involved does have a dark heart.

Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) gets involved with one of his old flames Geraldine (Lynn Merrick) who was menaced by thugs, she also leaves a small child in his house! Her husband is shot dead in Blackie's home and of course Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) suspects Blackie. Blackie escapes (again of course) and tries to unravel what is really going on. He finds the truth behind Geraldine and the child is a lot darker than he first thought...

A fun film, the usual Boston Blackie tropes and antics, including a lot of running around. Blackie and the Runt (George E Stone) both get to dress up and as usual no one can see though Blackie's rather flimsy disguise. Maybe a bit too familiar but a good show all the same.

The Human Duplicators (1965)

A bizarre sci-fi tale of android duplicates of humans.

Dr Kolos (Richard Kiel) is despatched to the Earth to conquer it by duplicating humans and turning them into somewhat unconvincing androids who look like they are made out of ceramic pottery. However, Kolos falls in love with a beautiful woman (Dolores Faith) and changes his mind about the invasion. 

Unfortunately, some of his duplicates already built including one of the scientist Professor Dornheimer (George Macready) and Glenn Martin (George Nader) are already causing trouble...

This is an odd film, with a huge amount of cheese and special effects of the cheapest type. The UFO for example looks like a Christmas decoration! Kiel's character is unintentionally hilarious and it is topped off with one of the most inept final fight scenes ever seen. Terrible but terrific too.

The Blood Waters of Dr Z (1971)

Heavy drug use must have been involved in this somewhere.

Dr Leopold (Marshall Grauer) is that beloved scientist of movie land, a mad one. Leopold is also some kind of Nazi and his way of bringing about the Fourth Reich is apparently to change himself into a bizarre killer sea monster. He transforms himself into a mutated catfish, he also wants to kidnap a young woman (Sanna Ringhaven) so he can breed a new master race of monsters. Why of course!

Leopold transforms himself into a rather plodding beast so mankind probably shouldn't lose too much sleep over him. His plans seem to be foiled by biologist Rex (Gerald Cruse) though the monster (Wade Popwell in the suit) manages to escape so who knows?

This is a pretty awful film, it is very cheaply made and makes little sense. It does have a real strange feel about it though and can be quite psychedelic at times, at least you will wonder if someone has spiked your drink.