Steptoe and Son Ride Again (1973)

Feature length movie versions of popular British sitcoms were popular in the 1970s, this indeed was the second film based on Steptoe and Son and unfortunately they should have quit while they were ahead.

Steptoe (Wilfred Brambell) and his son Harold (Harry H Corbett) are rag and bone men in London, trying to turn people's trash into treasure (and unfortunately usually failing). With money running out and bills mounting, Steptoe and Harold are in trouble. Things are made worse when their horse becomes lame and needs to be retired. Harold is given his Dad's life savings to buy a new horse, he comes home drunk with a greyhound instead!

Harold claims the greyhound will win them enough money to turn their business and lives around. Naturally things do not go to plan. In desperation Harold concocts a plot to fake Steptoe's death and claim the insurance...

The film is a reasonable watch but it just doesn't seem to be that funny. The situations are comical, and there are some good guest stars including Diana Dors, but the magic just seems to be missing and, with most sitcom movie conversions, the ideas just get overstretched. That is not to say the film isn't worth a watch, the view of a soon to vanish London is fascinating and the greyhound is a lovely dog.

Fatty Joins the Force (1913)

Fatty Arbuckle thinks joining the police will sort him with his beau.

Fatty's girlfriend Dot Farley likes a man in uniform. When a child falls into the lake she encourages Fatty to save it, by pushing him in after it! Happily Fatty does save the child after much splashing about and it turns out that the child is the daughter of the Police Commissioner (George Nichols). Fatty is rewarded by being made a police officer. However, he soon finds out that being a police officer and tackling criminal types isn't that much fun...

A perfectly fine if unexceptional little slapstick comedy film. Not all the gags work but Arbuckle does a decent job with the material he is given.

Dark Tower (1987)

A rather strange horror, not without some bright spots though few and far between.

Carolyn (Jenny Agutter) is the architect of a rather horrible looking new skyscraper in Barcelona. Mysterious happenings which result in grisly deaths and plenty of gore. Investigator Dennis (Michael Moriarty) brings in a paranormal investigator in Dr Gold (Theodore Bikel) after he suspects something really weird is going on. Dennis thinks that Carolyn's missing presumed dead husband might be behind the evil spirit...

Not the best horror film by any means, the film is rather cheap and not very cheerful. It is also rather disjointed and illogical. The horror thrills though are frequently quite exciting if ridiculous. 

Don't Talk to Strange Men (1962)

A neat little thriller warning nice middle class girls of the dangers of talking to strange men.

Jean (Christina Gregg) is heading home, waiting at the bus stop the telephone rings in an adjacent phone box. She answers it and speaks to a smooth voiced man. Jean gets a bit teenager giddy about it, telling her younger sister Ann (Janina Faye) though not her parents. Every day she speaks to the man again, falling in love, and eventually arranges to meet him for real.

Meanwhile there is a manhunt going on for a maniac who murders young women. Jean starts to get cold feet but is it too late?

A modest but well made film, the pacing is slow but the tension rises. You know Jean is making a big mistake but her teenage innocence drives her on and, well we have plenty of examples of how that innocence has been taken advantage of by groomers in real life. A good film.

The Trespasser (1929)

An early talkie, sometimes a little melodramatic but an interesting film all the same.

Marion (Gloria Swanson) is a stenographer who falls in love with the boss' son Jack (Robert Ames). They elope and get married but the father-in-law disapproves of his son marrying a poor girl. The marriage is quickly annulled but Marion is already pregnant. Despite great difficulty (this is the 1920s after all), Marion raises the boy herself. She suffers all sorts of troubles (she has some remarkably bad luck) and ends up losing the son but can she regain him and Jack?

This was Gloria Swanson's first talkie (though the film was made in sound and silent versions) and her triumph earning her an Oscar nomination. Some of the acting is a hybrid of the highly expressive silent era style and the new more static talkie style. The film is rather melodramatic, cliched and a bit corny but a very interesting and stylish watch.

The Gold Express (1955)

A nice little crime drama, though the criminals are rather inept!

A gang plan to steal gold which is being bought down to London on the sleeper train. Their heist will involve Rover (Patrick Boxhill) overpowering the guard in the van and then tossing the gold out while the train is travelling very slow uphill to where his mates are waiting (after being stopped multiple times by the police for dodgy lights or speeding).

Also on the train is newly married journalists Bob (Vernon Gray) and Mary (Ann Walford), Bob combining writing a piece on the gold with his honeymoon. Also there are the rather eccentric old ladies Agatha (May Hallett) and Emma (Ivy St Hellier) who write bloody crime novels. Plus the determined Pearl (Delphi Lawrence) who plans to shoot Rover...

All rather bright and breezy, cheap and cheerful with a motley crew of standard British characters. Not a great film though certainly worthwhile.

Empire of the Ants (1977)

A film about radioactive giant ants, probably as good as it could have been which isn't saying much.

Marilyn (Joan Collins) is arranging a tour of a Florida island, which she wants to sell plots of land to naive customers. Don't show the drum of nuclear waste which has been dumped on the beach. Some ants get enveloped in leaking nasty stuff.

Marilyn and her motley crew of 1970s disaster/monster film stereotypes are soon menaced by human sized ants. Their boat is attacked and destroyed leaving them marooned on the island. A battle for survival begins as they try and flee the giant ants, many falling and being torn to pieces in some rather graphic scenes...

It is ridiculous of course, the giant ants don't look too bad as puppets in close-ups (though scenes with magnified real ants not so good) but the horror and gore hit the spot. The film lacks some menace though for some reason and the plot is the usual nonsense with people behaving very strangely and annoying. For a giant insect monster film however, it isn't bad, though that isn't exactly a high bar.