Danger Trails (1935)

A nice enough though unspectacular Western.

Bob (Guinn Big Boy Williams) is a successful football star back east who heads back west to see his father and brothers whom he has not seen for years. 

However, to his surprise his family members are outlaws and they rob the stagecoach he is on! He manages to persuade his father to go straight but his father is killed by the sheriff. The brothers kidnap the sheriff's daughter (Marjorie Gordon), forcing Bob to choose between family and the law...

This is a fine enough example of a B-movie Western. It has all the usual tropes including speeded up horse riding and plenty of aimless firing of pistols (seldom hitting anyone of course) plus regular fights. The film is a worthwhile watch though has little you would have not seen before.

The Thousand Plane Raid (1969)

Much stock footage is assembled to give Nazi Germany a really bad time.

We are still early in the Second World War, British and American bombers are launching piece meal raids on Germany but Colonel Brandon (Christopher George) believes the raids need to be much bigger so a target can be devastated. 

Finally, Brandon is given the all clear to plan such a raid, but he needs help. He does not appreciate that the help comes in the form of cocky RAF Spitfire Howard (Gary Marshal). After much disagreement and no small number of training mishaps the raid is on, and of course Brandon and Howard are thrown together to lead the attack...

Not a bad film despite the limited budget, which therefore forced a reliance on a little more stock footage than i'm sure they would have preferred but we do get plenty of real B-17s. The story is a bit cliched but the structure of the film is sound and the combat scenes meaty enough.

The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story (1988)

A tense TV movie about a real-life hijacking that took place just a couple of years before.

Chief flight attendant Uli (Lindsay Wagner) thinks her next flight will be a run-of-the-mill run from Athens. However, soon into the flight two Hezbollah terrorists hijack the flight. Castro (Eli Danker) threatens to blow up the plane unless the crew do as they say. 

The plane is soon travelling backwards and forwards between Beirut and Algiers, Uli and the rest of the crew are trying to keep their passengers safe, especially their Jewish ones and US servicemen, while the terrorists demand the release of prisoners...

An excellent film, the low budget helping to keep everything low-key and very believable. The terrorists are brutal, violent but also humanised to build out the characters and not making them 2-D cardboard cut-outs as so often happens with characters like this on screen.

The Greene Murder Case (1929)

An early Philo Vance talkie.

The Greene family are that staple of interwar American families on screen: rich and hate each other! They live in the family ancestral pile and must live there for fifteen years otherwise they won't get a share of the late Mr Greene's wealth. 

After two of the family are killed within a few minutes of each other, Philo Vance (William Powell) is called in by the baffled police (Eugene Palette) to help, but even he is confused by the various possible suspects, though it helps that the possible suspects are being whittled down by being murdered too! 

A good film. Technically interesting especially with some of the camera angles in the final act and the peril on the roof. The story is good with some interesting psychological aspects to it. Although an early talkie the sound recording and acting isn't too bad.

Operation Bikini (1963)

A rather strange film that is a mix of wartime drama and pop video!

Captain Carey (Tab Hunter) is tasked with transporting an underwater demolition team to Bikini Atoll which is held by the Japanese, and a US Navy submarine with top secret technology is currently sunk on the seabed and must be blown up before the Japanese can find it. Among the demolition team is Malzone (Frankie Avalon) who dreams of being a 1960s crooner and hanging out on a beach amongst young women!

This isn't a great film but it is a very strange one. The war scenes are not bad though the sort of anti-submarine warfare seen before (and probably better). The songs and weirdness take the film to a whole other level, which is either awful or brilliant or maybe a bit of both.