Morning Departure (1950)

A gripping but ultimately bleak tale of a submarine in distress.

A Royal Navy submarine commanded by Armstrong (John Mills) heads off on a routine training mission. However, things go wrong when the submarine encounters a mine which explodes. The badly damaged submarine is trapped on the sea bed. Although the submarine is found by rescuers and some of the surviving crew escape, Armstrong and the last few including Stoker Snipe (Richard Attenborough) are trapped with no means of escape...

A tense drama, though a submarine will always give you that. Hope is dashed several times as the last survivors slowly realise that there will be not be a happy ending. A superb film.

Baffled! (1973)

A failed TV pilot becomes a pretty decent movie.

Tom Kovack (Leonard Nimoy) is a racing driver who begins to have intense visions during a crash. Occult investigator Michelle Brent (Susan Hampshire) thinks he is having a premonition of an American woman in danger in an English county house. 

Tom and Michelle track down the house (and thus the woman) and begin to uncover a Satanic plot to possess the woman's, Andrea's (Vera Miles), young daughter Jennifer (Jewel Blanch) for evil means... or just get Andrea's money.

This is a good film, though at times the story is a little disjointed which is probably why it never succeeded as a TV pilot. Remade as a film though the story is solid if a little too light to score as a horror. As a detective drama with a supernatural element it works a lot better. Nimoy and Hampshire had great chemistry together.

The Woman in the Window (1944)

A superb Noir, a man is dragged deeper into a dark spiral after being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Reserved academic Professor Richard Wanley (Edward G Robinson) becomes interested in the portrait of a young woman he sees in a window, and then he meets the model Alice (Joan Bennett)! They become friendly and he goes back to Alice's apartment to see other artwork, there when Alice's boyfriend (Arthur Loft) storms in and attacks Richard. Richard kills the man in self-defence.

But the nightmare has only just begun. Richard discovers that the man is a successful industrialist. He hides the body but when it looks like they might have got away with it, the man's bodyguard (Dan Duryea) turns up to blackmail them...

A well structured film full of tension and pretty dark. It soon becomes clear that Richard is pretty doomed and his quiet comfortable life has been changed forever. However, the surprise ending might be a step too far.

Seven Keys to Baldpate (1935)

An enjoyable dark house crime romp, just expect many clichés.

Writer William Magee (Gene Raymond) is looking for a quiet place to work on his book and heads to a remote hotel which should be empty. Unfortunately, it is anything but! 

There are a number of other people lurking around the hotel including Mary (Margaret Callahan) but also others who seem to have dark intents and some missing money.

This is a fun film and played pretty light and fast moving, Magee seems pretty unruffled throughout despite tangling with various thugs and potential dangers. It is full of dark house clichés including hidden rooms and random events. 

Black Cobra (1987)

Violent nonsense as the loner cop fights a violent motorbike gang in a 1980s post-industrial wasteland. So, pretty original then.

A brutal gang led by Bruno Bilotta is killing and raping people at random. They next attack photographer Elys (Eva Grimaldi) whom the gang think has taken photographs of them. The police call upon maverick cop Malone (Fred Williamson) to protect Elys from the thugs who are out to kill her no matter the cost...

This is a pretty generic late 1980s low budget violent film, the sort of film that used to fill video rental shop shelves by the dozens. It isn't that bad a film really, but you will have seen it all before and usually a lot better. 

It is what it is, plenty of violence and late 1980s post-industrial grime.