Murder at Midnight (1931)

A parlour game at a posh mansion ends in disaster when a man is shot for real by Jim Kennedy (Kenneth Thomson) when the blanks are exchanged for real bullets in a gun. Inspector Taylor (Robert Elliot) turns up to investigate the accident (or murder) but things take a turn for the worse when Kennedy is shot dead too.

The investigation begins in earnest and the usual collection of stereotypes (haughty matriarch (Clara Bandick), nervous young man (Leslie Fenton), flighty maid (Alice White), sinister butler (Brandon Hurst) et cetera are under investigation. Is Kennedy's wife Esme (Aileen Pringle) the culprit? Luckily criminologist Philip Montrose (Hale Hamilton) is on hand in the best traditions of Golden Age type detective stories to help the hapless police out...

The film is a nicely done whodunnit, if rather unoriginal dark house mystery. Many films with similar storylines were made in the 1930s, if one lesson is to be learned from all of these films is that its not a good idea to agree to being shot by a gun supposedly loaded with blanks! The pacing is good and the performances acceptable, not all early talkies were hamstrung by awkward pauses.

Pool Sharks (1915)

W.C. Fields and his rival Larry Westford are both trying to woo Marian West. First there are some antics at a picnic which involve lots of falling over, kicked backsides and other slapstick.

Then the two rivals head to the pool hall where after a number of amazing trick shots it all descends into a big fight and more slapstick. Truthfully its not the best silent comedy you'll ever see but not bad. It had some interesting camera work including some close-ups (still not that common in 1915) and stop-motion animation during the pool shots.

It was also W.C. Field's first film which is probably the most notable thing here.

The Phantom (1931)

A notorious criminal, The Phantom, is due to be executed in jail but just before he can be sent to the chair he stages an audacious escape: climbing a wall, jumping onto a passing train and then climbing aboard a ladder carried by an aeroplane. Well that is quite a promising start...

The Phantom vows to kill the man who put him away, he even says when he is going to do it. The police obviously think they can get The Phantom easily, but of course things do not go to plan...

The premise is promising but the execution is at times shocking. Overall the film is rather shoddy and rushed. The acting is also pretty awful especially from Allene Ray, Violet Knights and Tom O'Brien who must play one the worst police officer roles in history. Of course being an early talkie some of the silent movie actors had not yet transitioned to the different disciplines and method of acting in a sound movies, so everything is a bit awkward and overly dramatic. It isn't all terrible and is worth watching despite everything, there is a kind of campy appeal about the whole farce.

Mrs. Pym of Scotland Yard (1940)

The deaths of two women in mysterious circumstances and no apparent cause forces Scotland Yard into extreme measures: appointing a female detective for the case. Amid much late 1930s misogyny Mrs Pym (Mary Clare) and her sidekick Shott (Edward Lexy) get on with the case.

Both murdered women attended the same seances and left all their money to the a psychic club led by Professor Mencken (Anthony Ireland) and his assistant Miss Bell (Irene Handl) so there is some cause for suspicion...

Meanwhile rich industrialist Frank Wood (Vernon Kelso) seems very keen for his devoted niece Maraday (Janet Johnson) to attend the seances despite her fiance's (Nigel Patrick) scepticism and she seems to the next to be targeted. How is this all connected and can Mrs Pym solve it before she is kicked off the case?

It is all gloriously breezy hokum with plenty of 1930s mysticism and nonsense. The story itself is ridiculous though the method of murder is certainly innovative. It shouldn't be taken very seriously then it can be truly enjoyed.

Girl with a Gun (1982)

Yin Hsia plays an unfortunate girl, mute after being orphaned who is raped on the way home. And when she gets home she disturbs a burgular who tries to rape her again, but she grabs an iron and clobbers him. Then she cuts his corpse up and puts it in the fridge... as you do. She grabs his gun and begins a one-woman crusade against anything male... No it's not a comedy.

The action is furious, the shootings are rather unrealistic (she doesn't seem to aim very well but shoots them stone dead every time), especially in the gang fight scene which borrows heavily from one of the best films of all time The Warriors. The action even takes place in a fairground (but its not Coney Island obviously).

Alan Tam plays her boss and at the end she is invited to a party which involves ...er... limbo dancing. But by now the police are on her trail as her landlady has become suspicious, investigated her apartment and found something rather ewww in the fridge. Best not tell her though that Yin Hsia has already fed the landlady's cat human meat. Burp!

And Yin Hsia ends up in the asylum. She doesn't utter a single word throughout the entire film. Which is probably just as well as the film doesn't score highly for acting, though does for the sheer nonsense of the revenge plot.

Police Court (1932)

Heavy on melodrama, Police Court starts off in... a police court! We find drunkard Nat Barry (Henry B Walthall), who once was one of the brightest stars on stage, about to be sent to prison for a long sentence. After a last minute plea by his son (Leon Janney) he is given a final chance and a role in a film...

However Nat Barry is truly gone, he can't stick to his lines or stay sober. His decline continues, even ending up having to do an impression of Abraham Lincoln in a sideshow, and it all becomes rather bleak. Nat ends up in prison but his son begins his own movie career but when he needs help can his father come good for him...

The film could have done with a little more lightness but has some terrific performances especially from Walthall. The title of the film is a little confusing, very little of the film actually takes place in court.

An Inspector Calls (1954)

A superb Golden Age style murder mystery set just before the First World War. A posh family are having dinner (in their evening dress of course) when Inspector Poole (Alastair Sim) turns up. He tells them a young girl named Eva has been found dead.

Every family member in turn finds out that they may have had a hand in her death. Mr Birling (Arthur Young) for example sacked her once from his factory for trouble making. The daughter Sheila (Eileen Moore) got her fired from her job in a store for wearing a hat better than she did. As the puzzle continues to unravel via flashbacks then so too does the supposed respectability of the Birling family...

Outwardly a simple film but full of surprises and twists (especially at the end) and so wonderfully done. Alastair Sim plays a wonderful role, he lets the store unfold around him as the hypocrisy and immorality of Edwardian England is laid bare.