Secrets of the Lone Wolf (1941)

The Lone Wolf is in action again, using his skills as a former jewel thief to foil a dastardly plot to steal foreign valuables and affecting the war effort.

An unnamed European country has sent valuable jewels to the US to sell so they can continue their fight against the bad guys. The Lone Wolf Michael Lanyard (Warren William) is bought in to use his experience as a former top jewel thief to assist with security. 

Unfortunately, a syndicate of thieves are after the jewels. They want to recruit the Lone Wolf but mistake his valet Jamison (Eric Blore) for him (none of them knew what he looked like?) The Lone Wolf has to keep Jamison safe, as well as the jewels, and keep Inspector Crane (Thurston Hall) off his back!

A fine entry in the Lone Wolf series with the usual mix of rapid fire plot twists and swerves. It is best to ignore the plot holes and coincidences and just enjoy the smooth and comfortable performances by the leads. 

The 23 (1979)

Two cockney criminals (Tommy Godfrey and George Sweeney) break into an office to break into the safe, but this isn't a blag from the Sweeney, this is a promotional film from the General Post Office for it's fancy new Number 23 teleprinter! George becomes obsessed with the machine while his old man works on the safe and helpfully reads out from the manual all of the swish new features. This is great fun, how a promotional film should be done. I certainly want to buy a 23 after seeing this, though i guess eBay will be required these days...

King Dinosaur (1955)

Even by the standards of the day and genre this is a pretty appalling little film. 

A new planet which supports life is spotted close to Earth. A rocket (which looks remarkably like a V-2) is sent there with four human explorers. The four, which includes two men and two women including William Bryant and Wanda Curtis, waste no time in hooking up. They also get lost, while exploring this alien planet packed with life which is remarkably like Earth's...

Finally, they get menaced by a giant reptile and need to flee the planet. They also decide to nuke the planet (using an atom bomb they have been carrying around this whole time) as they leave and wipe out life there...

So, this is an awful film over filled with stock footage, scientific stupidity, misogyny, animal cruelty and pointless nuclear devastation. It is also pretty slow and tedious too. This might be one of the worst films ever made, unlike other 1950s science fiction films it lacks much in the way of camp or charm to compensate for the nonsense. Terrible.

Quest of the Delta Knights (1993)

Hilariously bad cod-medieval sword and sorcery nonsense. 

The land is under the cruel thumb of Manneryjay (Olivia Hussey) and her henchman Lord Vultare (David Warner). A secret society of good knights (called the Delta Knights) is seeking secret knowledge of Atlantis to give them the power to bring down Maydeed and company. 

The Delta Knights agent is Raydoor (somewhat confusingly also David Warner) who finds a young man called Tee (Corbin Allred) who may be the person prophesied to discover the secrets of Archimedes, though Leonardo de Vinci (David Kreigel) is also called upon to help...

This is an amazingly bad film with a plot which makes little sense, cheap sets, cheaper acting on the most part. It does have a strange camp charm though and some of the situations and dialogue are so ridiculous you can't help but laugh (unintentionally). What were they thinking?

Eegah (1962)

A very curious film indeed, and rather awful.

Teenager Roxy (Marilyn Manning) encounters a huge tall man at night (and faints natch). Later on, her father (Arch Hall Snr) heads into the desert to look for signs of this man and goes missing himself. 

Roxy heads into the desert with mediocre pop singer Tom (Arch Hall Jr) to look for him. They discover a cave man (Richard Kiel) has somehow survived away from civilisation and has taken Roxy's father prisoner, and naturally the cave man takes a liking to Roxy...

Some list this as among the worst films of all times... and they are probably right. The story is terrible and makes no sense and the acting is wooden. We also have some truly awful pop songs to pad the film out. The only good thing about the film is seeing Richard Kiel, who at least has a suitably menacing presence.