High School Caesar (1960)

A hilariously bad example of the high school drama genre (though are any of them any good?)

Matt (John Ashley) is the school's bad boy with his gang of followers but feared and hated by everyone else. The school mafia boss beats up weaker kids for their lunch money and gets copies of tests which he can sell to other kids. He also wants to be the school president but is up for election against Kelly (Lowell Brown) who wants none of that nonsense! Soon, much of the rest of the school also decide to stop the tyrannical rule of Matt...

Lets cut straight to the chase, this is a pretty awful film with a lack of action and endless wooden and stilted dialogue. It does have a few bright moments though including the character of Matt who isn't quite the one dimensional baddie you might think at first. In fact the more you know about his background (rich but neglected) the more you understand and he plays the role well. Much of the rest of the film though can be binned.

Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938)

Mr Moto is on form on this adventure ranging from a French prison to the foggy streets of old London town.

In order to infiltrate a gang of assassins, Mr Moto (Peter Lorre) has himself incarcerated on Devil's Island. There he helps Paul (Leon Ames) to escape. 

Now in his confidence, Mr Moto travels with Paul to London to be his Japanese valet. Moto discovers a plot to kill the industrialist Anton Darvak (Henry Wilcoxon), however he doesn't know who the leader of the gang is and begins an investigation in the seedy side of London and also fine art...

This is an excellent instalment in the Mr Moto series with the Japanese detective having to employ his skills in disguise as well as fighting. The "English" accents are hilariously bad. The reveal of the evil mastermind is good, though probably predictable.

Velvet Smooth (1976)

A blaxploitation epic full of hilariously bad fights.

Strange looking men in masks are muscling in on King's (Owen Watson) street hustles. Velvet Smooth (Johnnie Hill) is a female private detective who King hires to find out who is behind the attacks. The "investigation" seems to consist of random fights all over the place and hanging out in Velvet's stylish 1970s apartment. The police are also investigating in the form of Lt Ramos (Frank Ruiz), Sgt Barnes (Moses Lyllia) and a Kojak impersonator!

The story is fairly basic and easy to follow but this film is about the violence. There is a lot of it and it is nearly all bad. Endless fights in the streets and warehouses, obviously (if not very good) choreographed but also very ineptly. It helps to make the film highly entertaining, it also had plenty of late 1970s cheese.

Alien from L.A. (1988)

A cheesy 1980s sci-fi comedy, it is totally nonsense but looks amazing and is great fun.

Wanda (Kathy Ireland) is a nerd girl who never does anything exciting. She finds out her archaeologist father (Richard Haines) has gone missing in Africa and heads out to try and find him. She ends falling down a large hole her father once dug and ends up in a weird subterranean world. The inhabitants of this underground world look like extras from Mad Max but do speak English. Wanda travels with Gus (William R Moses) to the city where she soon finds herself hunted by the authorities who want to suppress knowledge of the world above...

This is a crazy film which doesn't make a lot of sense but it looks great. Aesthetically it is a mixture of Mad Max and the sort of future shock pop videos popular in the late 1980s. A feature length pop video therefore and well worth seeing.

Spy Smasher (Serial) (1942)

Spy Smasher battles a Nazi spy in this wartime action serial adaptation of a comic book character.

Alan Armstrong (Kane Richmond) has a costumed alter-ego known as Spy Smasher, he is well named indeed as his job is to battle Nazi spies who have come across to America to cause mayhem. 

The spies are led by The Mask (Hans Schumm) who uses a U-boat as his secret base and puts Spy Smasher in peril by the end of every episode, check out next week to see how he escapes!

This is one of the better action serials with some good perils and good use of stock footage.

Date Bait (1960)

Delinquent teens twisted by drugs, rock and roll and huge cars.

Brad (Dick Gering) returns home after spending some time in rehab. He tries to get in with Sue (Marlo Ryan), who he is sweet on, but she isn't keen and is with Logan (Gary Clarke) instead. Brad and Logan have a rather limp fight in the teen bar.

Brad's older brother (John Garwood) intervenes and beats up Logan for him, he orders Brad to help him out with his drug dealing. Brad finds the lure of drugs a challenge. Meanwhile, Logan and Sue's young love runs up against parental disapproval and they decide to skip to Vegas...

This is standard teen B-movie fare. The storyline is basic, the acting also pretty basic (though fairly serviceable) and the settings and direction average. It is an enjoyable little film though, Logan and Sue are fairly sympathetic characters. The rock and roll is cool, the 1950s cars are even cooler.

Mr. Moto's Gamble (1938)

Mr Moto cross overs into the Charlie Chan universe.

A boxer dies in the ring, it is later found that he was poisoned, the poison being found on the gloves of his opponent Bill Steele (Dick Baldwin), the death was to fix the fight so gangster Nick Crowder (Douglas Fowley) could make a ton of cash out of the bookies. Japanese detective Mr Moto (Peter Lorre) proves the boxer's death was murder but the search goes on to find out who was behind it.

Meanwhile Lee / Number One Son (Keye Luke) is attending a class by Mr Moto and in his bumbling way gets involved in the investigation... not that Mr Moto really needs any help.

This is a decent detective story, more sedate than Mr Moto adventures often are... more like a Charlie Chan story indeed. That is because this was supposed to be a Charlie Chan film but Warner Oland died early in the film's production and so the film was rewritten to be a Mr Moto film. But it does mean that Mr Moto and Charlie Chan did solve crimes at the same time if we want to get all modern day movie universe about it, it is just a shame of course they didn't get to meet.