The Crime Doctor's Gamble (1947)

The Crime Doctor heads to gay Paris!

Dr Ordman (Warner Baxter) has gone to Paris to lecture, and definitely not get involved in investigating a crime. Of course, very soon he is helping his detective friend (Marcel Journel) out with a murder as the main suspect could be insane. 

The Crime Doctor investigates the case which involves art forgery, an old family dispute and a knife thrower act!

The ninth entry in the Crime Doctor series, and pretty enjoyable too. Although set in Paris, the crime procedural is fairly standard for a B-movie of the period, but the setting adds a little bit of freshness and novelty.

The Magic Christmas Tree (1964)

A wacky little Christmas movie.

Mark (Chris Kroesen) dares his two friends to go to an old house which he says is lived in by a witch. After his friends scarper, Mark encounters an old woman (Valerie Hobbs) and she gets him to help get her cat Lucifer out of the tree. 

Mark falls and hits his head and finds that the old woman really was a witch. She gives him a magic ring which will help him to grow a magic Christmas tree that can grant him three wishes...

Well there is more to thing than meets the eye but i think you can guess what that is. A strange little film which feels like it's largely improvised. The film isn't that brilliant but it is not without some charm, and a bit of fun.

Blood Street (1988)

Terrific straight-to-video nonsense.

Joe Wong (Leo Fong) is a private investigator hired by the wife (Kym Paige) of a hoodlum MacDonald (Stan Wertlieb) to find her missing husband. 

Joe soon finds himself drawn into a complicated, and somewhat bewildering, gang war between MacDonald and rival gang leader Boyd (Richard Norton). Joe having to use his martial arts skills to protect himself from the gangsters and crooked cops...

The film does not make a lot of sense (or any sense at times) but it is great fun. The martial arts and other action scenes are high impact and well done, the story line (such that it is) does not get in the way of the action scenes, the next of which is never far away. It is low budget, sleazy, incomprehensible and cheap.

And it is brilliant.

The Brighton Strangler (1945)

A rather dark, if somewhat implausible, tale of murder in the dark streets during the Blitz.

Reginald Parker (John Loder) is a successful stage actor though he is starting to tire of his role as a murderer, the Brighton Strangler. 

When he is hit on the head during a bombing raid on London he has amnesia but a chance enounter unlocks a memory in his brain and he now believes that he is really the Brighton Strangler! He heads to Brighton and begins to kill for real...

A dark tale and the medical details are somewhat ridiculous, but the film is pretty atmospheric and well directed though the short film can drag a bit at times. The ending is particularly memorable.

Dance Hall Racket (1953)

An appalling piece of exploitative sleaze.

A criminal is killed at a dodgy night club owned by Tim Farrell (Umberto Scalli) with Vincent (Lenny Bruce) as his murderous henchman (who is very handy with a knife). 

A Federal agent is sent in to investigate and he discovers the club is a front for a diamond smuggling racket. Vincent meanwhile has plans to replace his boss permanently...

This is pretty grim stuff, badly acted and plotted. The cheese factor is high but when a dog (which doesn't do much other than lie around) outacts most of the humans then you know things are bad...

The sheer ridiculousness can be compelling at times but "so bad it's good" can only take you so far.