Who Killed Gail Preston? (1938)

An interesting little murder mystery, and including some musical numbers too!

Gail Preston (Rita Hayworth) is a popular young singer working in the club, her talent is only matched by her ability to make enemies including her ex whom she wants fired. She is gunned down at the end of a song in the club and detective Tom Kellogg (Don Terry) is quickly on the case. 

It seems like it might be a simple case too as Owen (Dwight Frye) confesses to the murder then kills himself. However, it is quickly revealed that it wasn't Owen, there was another culprit and a fascinatingly devious way to commit the crime...

A good crime drama with plenty of red herrings and twists and turns as the various suspects are ticked off one by one. However, the film is basically a remake of 1934's The Crime of Helen Stanley (though in the earlier film's case the crime takes place on a movie set). But the crime is ingenious enough to be enjoyable twice!

Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951)

Bulldog Drummond has been away breeding pigs, he is called back into action to battle a deadly gang.

A highly organised criminal gang is running rampant in London. The police turn to Bulldog Drummond (Walter Pidgeon) for help. He goes missing from his club (for a rather complicated reason which easily goes wrong) and goes undercover as a criminal. 

Drummond and policewoman Helen Smith (Margaret Leighton) join the gang led by Arthur Gunns (Robert Beatty), but the identity of the mastermind behind the gang is still a mystery...

An enjoyable film, taking a look at the sleazy underbelly of early postwar London. The story is good with a number of interesting scenes and sub-plots. Not quite as fast paced as some earlier Bulldog Drummond films but this goes give the film room to breathe.

The Falcon's Alibi (1946)

Another entry in the Falcon series, the Falcon being a former jewel thief who has gone straight but the police never believe him!

The secretary Joan (Paula Corday) of rich Gloria Peabody (Esther Howard) is in trouble. She has discovered some of her employer's expensive pearls have gone missing and if more are taken then she will get the blame. 

She enlists the help of The Falcon Tom Conway (Tom Lawrence). However, soon the jewels are stolen and also a butler is murdered...

This is a good entry in the series though has little you would have seen before from a Falcon film. The usual mix of fast moving dialogue, red herrings and face paced action. The Falcon is his usual calm and suave self and very very watchable. Its great fun.

Great Guy (1936)

He might be holier than thou in this role but James Cagney really scores in this role... as a weights and measures inspector!

In New York the weights and measures inspectors make sure citizens are not short changed. Small cheats lead to big profits and thus the inspectors are under fire. Johnny (Cagney) is put in charge of the department after the head is put on the shelf in a suspicious accident. Johnny discovers that everyone in business wants to be his friend, and want him to look the other way in return for a bribe. 

Even though Johnny plans to marry Janet (Mae Clarke), he remains firm. Though unfortunately one of the crooked businessmen is Janet's boss and this soon puts his relationship under trouble as well as his safety...

This is a great little film, one of a couple of B-movies Cagney made for smaller studios when he was between major studios. His character is maybe a little too good to be true at times but Cagney pulls it off in his usual energetic and charismatic style, of course. 

The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission (1988)

The last of a series of Dirty Dozen sequels, by now everything was wearing a bit too thin.

It is 1943 and secretly the Nazis believe the war can't be won, thus twelve young Nazi hot shots are going to be sent to the Middle East to lay the foundations for the Fourth Reich. Major Wright (Telly Savalas) recruits another bunch of condemned and hopeless convicts for another suicide mission to go deep into Nazi held eastern Europe and kill the Nazis before they can reach Istanbul.

To make things more complicated, one of the Major's Dirty Dozen is a Nazi spy and is intent on sabotaging the mission. The Major thus changes his plan on the fly though this could mean his men become targets of the RAF!

A rather by-the-numbers TV movie, it has the usual tired tropes of crack SS stormtroopers not being able to shoot straight plus the premise doesn't really make a lot of sense. It is fine enough to watch if you just want some wartime action and not worry too much about quite why!