Forbidden Jungle (1950)

Limited but largely inoffensive sub-Tarzan nonsense.

Big game hunter Burton (Don Harvey) turns up in the jungle with a group of natives and a tiger in a cage, however he is not here to massacre defenceless animals, he is hunting for a boy. A boy who is rumoured to have been bought up by chimpanzees after his parents were killed in a plane crash. That does sound a bit familiar doesn't it?

Tawa (Robert Cabal) has in fact been bought up by Trader Kirk (Forrest Taylor) and his friendly natives who live alongside chimps. Burton tries to lure Tawa back to civilisation using the image of the lights of Broadway as the best thing in the universe. This is truly a very strange film.

Not a great deal happens in this film, it has all the usual jungle and noble savage tropes and is padded out with plenty of stock footage of wild animals. Ray "Crash" Corrigan also turns up with his gorilla suit to do his usual unconvincing ape act. Not a good film by any means but watchable enough especially if you like seeing chimpanzees messing about.

Taxi Driver (1976)

A classic dark tale of a troubled man pushed over the edge.

Travis (Robert De Niro), a veteran and somewhat mentally unstable, takes a job as a taxi driver on the night shift as he can't sleep. Here he is exposed to all of the sin of the big city lights, some of which he likes to partake in especially porn. He falls in love with (or maybe obsessed with) Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) who is working for an aspiring politician, though his date with her ends badly when he takes her to a porn cinema!

Travis then sees Iris (Jodie Foster), a twelve year old prostitute pimped by Sport (Harvey Keitel). Travis tries to get her to leave her terrible life. He shaves his head and heads out with his guns, he wants to save Iris and make a difference and doesn't expect to survive...

A superbly crafted and paced film, a true highlight of 1970s cinema. A story that will shock but also surprises, especially the final twist.

Thrill of Youth (1932)

This promises a lot though largely fails to deliver. It remains an average though not uninteresting view of early 1930s society.

Big game hunter Chet (Matty Kemp) returns, from butchering innocent animals, to his neglected girlfriend Marcia (Caryl Lincoln). However, Chet isn't very faithful, and soon he is chasing the local vamp Jill (June Clyde). Unfortunately Chet's brother Jack (Allen Vincent) is also very keen on her. Things get very complicated when Jack and Jill spends the night together (innocently) at a log cabin leading to conflict between the brothers...

Pre-code but fairly tame nowadays, and probably not that racy back in 1932 for most. The plot doesn't make a great deal of sense, with various threads left up in the air. 

Dead Heat (1988)

A cheesy zombie buddy cop movie, which somehow is brilliant!

LA cops Roger (Treat Williams) and Doug (Joe Piscopo) investigate a series of brutal robberies by men who are very hard to kill. Coroner Rebecca (Clare Kirkconnell) discovers that the men are zombies, bought back to life somehow using chemicals and something else. Roger and Doug track down these chemicals to a shady bio-tech company where they discover bizarre human experiments taking place, including bringing the dead back to life. After Roger is killed by the company's henchmen, Rebecca and Doug bring Roger back to life as a zombie cop!

Roger unfortunately only has a few hours before his body breaks down. With the help of the company's former PR head Randi (Lindsay Frost) they discover a shadowy plot to give the rich immortality, after a fee of course. Quite how is Loudermilk (Vincent Price) involved?

A terrific action romp of a film, part buddy cop, part zombie horror. At times it gets very gory indeed, and also pretty violent. A highly entertaining film which maybe shouldn't be but the makers and cast managed to pull off a bit of magic here.

Look out for a number of interesting appearances as well as Price in one of his last few films, including Robert Picardo (Star Trek Voyager's EMH) and Keye Luke who was of course Charlie Chan's Number 1 son!

Bulldog Drummond's Revenge (1937)

Another in the long-running Bulldog Drummond series, more exciting spy adventures in a Britain which always seems covered in fog.

Drummond (John Howard) is ready to head to Switzerland with Algy (Reginald Denny) and Tenny (E.E. Clive) so he can finally marry Phyllis (Louise Campbell). However, a evil (if somewhat inept) group of plotters are planning to steal a terrible new explosive and of course Drummond and company get dragged into Neilson's (John Barrymore) case. 

The gang steal a suitcase of the explosive from an aeroplane but the suitcase ends up in Drummond's hands. The gang steals it back but everyone ends up on the same boat train to Paris for confusing escapades on a train and then a boat...

A good fast paced adventure though containing nothing you haven't seen before (especially if you have seen other films in the series). The character ensemble perform their usual quips or faints. A perfectly enjoyable film.

House of the Black Death (1971)

A rather low-rent and low-energy Satanic horror... not that there is that much horror. Plenty of Satan though.

The Desard family have been cursed by Demonic forces for centuries. Now the two brothers Andre (John Carradine) and Belial (Lou Chaney Jr) are competing warlords invoking the power of Satan to control the local village and estate. Visiting scientists Dr Mallory (Andrea King) and Dr Campion (Jerome Thor) naturally scoff at such superstitious nonsense.

But the Satanic battle is real, though mostly seems to consist of scantily clad women gyrating and writhing and plenty of calls to Satan. To be honest about 50% of the dialogue of this film is the word "Satan" and there is a lot of dialogue in this film. Actual visual horror is in short supply though the film is undeniably a bit creepy but isn't very scary. And really isn't that good.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)

A glorious mockney romp.

Geezah mockney Eddy (Nick Moran) enters a high stakes poker game with gangland boss Hatchet Harry (P.H. Moriarty), his stake raised by his three other geezah mockney mates (Dexter Fletcher, Jason Flemyng and Jason Statham). Although Eddy is a top card shark, Harry has a hidden edge... he cheats. Eddy loses his mates' money and ends up having to owe Harry half a million which is a lot of bread. Unfortunately for Eddy and his geezah mates, the money will be collected by Harry's hard men: Barry the Baptist (Lenny McLean) and Big Chris (Vinnie Jones).

Meanwhile a plot to get Harry some antique shotguns and a plan by Eddy and his geezah mates to steal money and cannabis results in a huge and bloody showdown...

None of it really makes sense, Eddy and his geezah mates act so naive and foolishly its a wonder they weren't brown bread years ago. The characters are ridiculous, one dimensional cartoon characters. But thats probably the point. This is a swagging and stylish and very violent film with cool scenes and cool music throughout.