Night Alarm (1934)

Hal Ashby (Bruce Cabot) is a newspaper reporter determined to find out who is behind a spate of arson attacks in the city. The mayor is feeling the pressure to stop the attacks, but he is also under pressure from an industrialist bankrolling him.

He thus tries to pressurise the newspaper led by Sam Hardy. A complication is that the industrialist (H.B. Warner)'s daughter Helen (Judith Allen) is working for the paper too and gets involved with Hal...

Although pretty predictable Night Alarm is a decent watch with good performances by the leads Cabot and Allen with an exciting conclusion... though no surprises that it involves a fire! Actual fire footage is well woven into the film to elevate it above it's slim B-movie budget.

The Scarlet Claw (1944)

Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Dr Watson (Nigel Bruce) are in Canada for a conference on the occult where Lord Penrose (Paul Cavanagh) tells about a murderous monster in the village of La Mort Rouge. Just after an argument on the existence of the supernatural the Lord receives the shock news his wife has been found with her throat slashed.

Holmes and Watson begin investigating the case, he sees that Lady Penrose was actually a former actress who had been involved with a murder case with another actor Alastair Ransom (Gerald Hamer). Ransom is supposed to be dead but Holmes thinks he is still alive and hiding in the village, desperate to keep his new identity secret...

Although an original story and not based on an Arthur Conan Doyle story this is a very entertaining Holmes romp with great chemistry between Rathbone and Bruce. Cavanagh also does a good turn as the Lord obsessed with psychic phenomena.

Picture Brides (1934)

Picture Brides is a pre-code tale of mail-order brides and miners in Brazil, and also a tough tale of brutality, sleaze and rape but it is so over the top it simply can't be taken that seriously.

A group of miners have sent for white women (including Dorothy Mackaill and Mae Busch) to marry, also along with them Mary (Dorothy Libaire) who has been tricked into thinking she has a job waiting for her...

Instead she is to be married to Dave Hart (Regis Toomey) who is somewhat indifferent to her and has a dark secret, he is wanted by the US police. Von Luden (Alan Hale) the brutal foreman wants Mary for himself... and unfortunately for her and Hart he knows the Hart's secret.

Its sleazy but sharp with some good dialogue. Von Luden is a real villain, almost to pantomime levels. In one scene he uses a seventeenth century tapestry as a ruse before he gets Mary near naked and tries to rape her. He also likes to shoot native workers who have the nerve to ask to be paid after months of hard labour! However he carries out one evil deed too many...

Hard Guy (1941)

Bar owner Vic Monroe (Jack La Rue) has a rather unlikely scam going. He arranges for his female employees to meet and marry rich men but then engineers a quick annulment making a profit from the settlement. When dancer Doris Starr (Gayle Mellott) marries Anthony Tremaine (Howard Banks) all ends in chaos when Anthony's father (C. Montague Shaw) turns up and threatens to disinherit him, sparking a riot.

Now Jack's nefarious / ridiculous plot goes into action. His friend poses as Doris' father to negotiate an annulment settlement to keep things quiet. Meanwhile detective Tex Cassidy (Jack Mulhall) is investigating the club and involves the ex-governor's son Steve Randall (Kane Richmond). Meanwhile Vic leads Doris on to think he will marry her. When she finds out he doesn't mean it she threatens to blow his whole scheme. He kills Doris and frames Anthony Tremaine. Julie (Mary Healy) the sister of Doris begins to investigate the club and Vic's schemes with the help of Steve and Tex...

So it's all rather ridiculous. Vic's scheme is nonsense of course and some of the characters (such as Tex) are incredibly one dimensional. However the film flows reasonably well and has enough of a spark and good enough job from the leads to be at least watchable.

The Port of Lost Dreams (1934)

Molly (Lola Lane) is a gangster's girlfriend on the run, she stows away on a fishing boat crewed by Lars (William Boyd) and Porky (Edward Gargan). Despite initially wanting to throw her overboard Lars eventually falls in love with Molly and they get married and start a family.

Well what can ruin this new domestic bliss? How about the gangster ex-boyfriend (Harold Huber) getting out of jail, you see Molly never got around to telling Lars about her past...

Although nothing that spectacular this is a nice enough and enjoyable little film with some good lines. The ending might stretch credibility a bit.

Star Trek VIII: First Contact (1996)

After a middling "Generations" the Next Generation Star Trek crew led by Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) hit high gear with First Contact, definitely one of the better films in the Star Trek series.

The Borg have travelled to the mid-twentieth century to stop humanity meeting the Vulcans for the first time. Only Picard and company can stop them, as long as they can stop the Borg assimilating them first...

On Earth Dr Cochrane (James Cromwell) is preparing to launch Earth's first warp ship and thus became a historic figure hero worshipped by later humans and even have schools named after him. The Star Trek crew quickly discover that Cochrane isn't quite like the historic icon they thought he was. Indeed in reality he is a drunk who is more interested in cash, booze and young women than anything else...

This is a very good film which manages to mix the space action with exploring it's own future history canon very well. There is plenty of humour but in the right places and some stand out action scenes, i particularly liked the space walking scene and resulting fight out in the endless cold of space. For the first time the Borg Queen (Alice Krige) makes an appearance, here she was great though the character was rather ruined when it later appeared in the TV series Voyager...

One small criticism is Picard and Data (Brent Spiner) get most of the screen time with the rest of the TNG crew marginalised. Still that is not unusual for a Star Trek film.

Dick Tracy's G-Men (Serial) (1939)

Classic action serial starring Ralph Byrd as the top detective (though for some reason he is now in the FBI)...

The leader of a gang of spies Zarnoff (Irving Pichel) manages to escape his own execution thanks to a rare and exotic drug and continues his plan to blow up an ammunition convoy using a robot controlled bomb.

Tracy manages to foil his plan but Zarnoff remains on the loose and determined to wreak havoc and avenge himself on Tracy.

As it is a serial (and thus originally shown in short chunks of around fifteen minutes each) the action is fast moving with regular cliff hangers. The need for regular cliff hangers does make the plot a bit contrived and repetitive of course when watched in a single chunk.

It is a bit of a strange Dick Tracy story - in fact it is hardly Dick Tracy at all in many ways. There is no Tess Truehart in this tale for example but he does have a secretary called Gwen (Jennifer Jones).