Flying Blind (1941)

Flying Blind involves a plane crash and rather aptly is a bit of a wreck. What kind of film is this? A goofy romantic comedy? A spy film? Adventure? It tries to be all three and doesn't really work.

Jim Clark (Richard Arlen) is an airline pilot who quits with his flight attendant Shirley (Jean Parker) to start his own specialist airline transporting couples eloping to Las Vegas (well it's an interesting niche). Jim is also in a love-hate romance with Shirley which fills a lot of the film's time.

Meanwhile enemy agents have stolen secret military equipment and hijack Jim's airliner to make a get-away. The plane crashes in the forest but the adventure and peril continues...

The first half of the film drags but once we get to the actual spying and hijacking plot things pick up a bit... but not much. The aeroplane footage is enjoyable but there isn't much else to commend.

The Human Monster (1939)

An uneven, frequently ridiculous but undeniably creepy film. Bela Lugosi is Dr Orloff, a sinister (almost to a pantomime villain level) insurance agent and doctor at a home for the blind in London. Suspicion arises when there are a series of murders, the link being insurance policies drawn up by Orloff who then collects on the policies when they have been killed.

Orloff is the one doing the bumping off with the help of a disfigured blind assistant. The police in the form of Larry Holt (Hugh Williams) and for some reason Lieutenant O'Reilly (Edmon Ryan) from Chicago are on the case. Diana (Greta Gynt) is the daughter of one of the victims and a bit of a love interest for Holt and of course drawn into peril when she starts working at Dr Orloff's lair...

Dr Orloff is so over the top its hard to imagine any of his victims being fooled by him long enough to commit his crimes. It is best to suspend disbelief and enjoy the film for what it is, a creepy romp with good use of shadows.

The Toughest Man in the World (1984)

Mr T runs a youth centre for disadvantaged kids on the touch streets of Chigaco, saving them from a life of crime. Unfortunately those pencil pushing bureaucrats at city hall want to shut the centre down. He needs to raise money to keep the centre open and so enters a contest to find the Toughest Man in the World...

Mr T may not give a masterclass of acting (though has plenty of on-screen charisma) but this film is a masterclass of early 1980s cheese. You will see break dancing, bad polyester suits galore and ghetto blasters. Mr T also raps over the opening tune (which is one of the highlights if we are going to be honest).

The fighting scenes are decent as you might expect, the story line and acting is average as you also might expect. Of course that isn't the point of a film like this. Its all about Mr T spouting nonsense and beating people up. It (and he) is brilliant.

Six-Shootin' Sheriff (1938)

Trigger Morton (Ken Maynard) is fresh out of gaol, where he has spent time after being framed for a crime he didn't commit by local tough guy Kendal (Warner Richmond). Out for revenge on Kendal he also gets roped into tackling the Bar X gang which is terrorising the town, as the sheriff...

After being wounded he is nursed back to health by Molly (Marjorie Reynolds) who provides the love interest (though to be honest he looked old enough to be her Dad)...

There isn't a great deal of story in the film if we're being honest, it's a film of decent if unspectacular action set-pieces though including good horsemanship - which Maynard excelled at as a trick rider for Buffalo Bill.

Charlie Chan in Rio (1941)

Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is in Rio on the trail of singer Lola Dene (Jacqueline Dalya) whom Chan believes killed a man in Honolulu. When Chan arrives at Lola's home to arrest her he finds her stabbed to death...

As usual with a Charlie Chan film there are many suspects including her fiancee, friends and an ex-husband. There is also a mysterious mystic (Victor Jory) who has recorded evidence of Lola's previous crime. Chan makes his way through the case, helped/hindered by number two son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung). The local police chief Souto (Harold Huber) is more help...

This is a great entry in the Chan series with a solid supporting cast and the "Rio" setting plus plenty of samba dancing adds an exotic flair to proceedings.

Teenage Dreamers (1982)

Elaine Chow and Rowena Cortes are high school students doing what HK schoolgirls always seem to do in movies - throw coke (as in cola) around and shoplift in japanese department stores. Then their school links up with a boy's school to do a joint production of Romeo & Juliet. Elaine gets the part of Juliet to play opposite schoolboy hunk Leslie Cheung's Romeo...

But she can't get the final dramatic scene right... until she falls in love with her Romeo for real. They meet secretly in Macau, they frolic on the beach, he pulls down her top and then we cut to the waves crashing on the shore... Now real lovers their final scene in R&J is a hit. But then he splits up with her before the opening night...

A cute and very vivid early 80s HK teen flick. The colours are fantastic, you even get to see/hear Rowena singing on the beach, which is pretty nice. There are plenty of teen/fun frolics but nothing too cheesy.

By Appointment Only (1933)

A reasonable if ultimately uninteresting film and certainly one that couldn't be made today as it features an older man flirting with a thirteen year old girl!

Dr Travers (Lew Cody) is a suave and cocky doctor who feels guilty after he couldn't save one of his patients who died in his surgery. He makes the young daughter of the deceased woman, Judy (Sally O'Neal) his ward, not that his fiancee (Aileen Pringle) is that impressed...

Judy matures into an attractive young woman by the time she is eighteen (not that the Doctor seemed unattracted to her beforehand, the fact he liked her to call her uncle adds to the slight creepiness). His fiancee by now is really pissed off. Luckily there is a more reasonable suitor who is Judy's own age but we do get a bit of a four sided love triangle.

However all of this sounds far worse in text than it is onscreen, this isn't Lolita by any means. Instead it's a fairly average light hearted romantic drama. It could have been more but it is what it is.