Cry of the City (1948)

A hard Noir, a battle of wits between cop and criminal on the tough streets.

Martin (Richard Conte) has been arrested for shooting a policeman, however the lawyer Niles (Berry Kroeger) wants Martin to also take the blame for the brutal robbery of an old woman for jewels. Martin escapes custody, though badly wounded. 

Lieutenant Candella (Victor Mature) leads the hunt for Martin, but Martin is also interested in why Niles wanted him to take the rap for the jewel theft...

A great film, tough and gritty. The two leads are pushed to their limits in their relentless cat and mouse chase. Childhood friends Martin and Candella are both highly similar (both Italian background from the same streets) but also so different in outlook and eventual outcome too. Only one can come out of this alive. 

An excellent example of the Noir genre.

Agent for H.A.R.M. (1966)

A rather poor and low budget 1960s spy drama, actual James Bond spoofs can be more realistic.

H.A.R.M. agent Adam Chance (Mark Richman) is tasked with protecting an ex-Soviet scientist called Dr Steffanic (Carl Esmond) who has developed a new weapon that kills people with a spore which literally eats the victim alive. 

Chance meets Steffanic though seems more interested in the niece Ava (Barbara Bouchet) who seems allergic to wearing anything more substantial than a bikini. Steffanic is working on an antidote to the spores before the enemy can unleash them on the good old US of A. However, there is more to Ava than meets the eye...

Chance doesn't exactly cut a very dashing 1960s secret agent figure. Instead of a suave DJ, he squeezed his middle aged frame into a yellow cardigan! The action is mostly pretty poor though the scene where Chance is on a motorbike and fighting an agent in a light plane is pretty good. The film seems like it was made on a budget of about 25¢ though does make the most of it. It is fun if approached with the right frame of mind.

Outlaw of Gor (1988)

Cabot returns to a mysterious world (called Gor) thanks to his magical ring and battles warriors and wizards with swords in a rather insipid fashion.

American academic Cabot (Urbano Barberini), along with his sex crazed and sleazy friend Watney (Russel Savadier), returns to Gor - a planet Cabot fought on in an earlier film. The Elder (Alex Heyns) fears that his wizard priest Xeno (Jack Palance) is up to no good. However, Cabot seems more interested in getting back with the Princess (Rebecca Ferratti)...

However, the Elder is wrong. It is the Queen (Donna Denton) who wants to usurp him. The Queen seduces Watney in order to frame Cabot for the murder of the Elder. Cabot flees into the desert with a bounty hunter after him...

This is all nonsense and a pretty low-rent sword and sorcery tale. Everything looks cheap and unfortunately is all rather half-hearted. It has plenty of camp but unfortunately not quite enough to get over everything else.

The Millerson Case (1947)

Crime doctor Dr Ordway finally manages to get away on vacation, unfortunately it turns into a real busman's holiday.

Dr Ordway (Warner Baxter) heads to rural West Virginia to do some hunting, however immediately he is drawn into problems in the small town. Firstly, a typhoid outbreak and then a murder investigation after the local barber dies of poisoning. 

Ordway begins his investigation, unfortunately due to the victim being a bit of a romeo everyone in town seems to be potentially a suspect! The local doctor (Addison Richards) is also shot dead as Ordway closes in on the culprit...

A fine crime drama with a complicated plot full of red herrings and twists. This was the eighth film starring the Dr Ordway character and a great entry in the series. 

Frozen Scream (1975)

An amazingly bizarre, and at times pretty gruesome, zombie horror.

A group of scientists (mad of course) are trying to discover the secret of immortality. They do this by kidnapping people and turning them into zombies which are kept frozen until they are needed for nefarious purposes. One of these zombies is Tom (Wolf Muser) and now his wife Ann (Lynne Yeaman) is trying to find out what happened to him. This puts her in various perils of course and pitted against one of the scientists (Renee Harmon) who has an impressively sinister accent...

This is a really weird film, the zombies dress as mad monks, the direction is very strange at times with curiously chosen camera angles but the scares can work, or can be hilarious, or both. 

The film doesn't really make a lot of sense and has a lengthly scene while a bad rock and roll band plays for some reason right in the middle of strange satanic rituals and vicious zombie attacks. It really shouldn't work and it doesn't... but somehow it does at the same time.

The Golf Specialist (1930)

A wonderful, if somewhat aimless, comedy short by the amazing WC Fields.

Bellweather (Fields) is at a hotel in Florida. After some awkward antics with a flirty wife (Shirley Grey) of the violently jealous hotel detective (John Dunsmuir), and with an angry sailor (Jack Irvin) wanting money from him, Bellweather goes to play some golf with many slapstick mishaps.

This is a great piece of fluff, it doesn't really go anywhere (and probably spends too long on the golf course) but is entertaining all the same and well worth watching. Fields early on mentions television, i wonder if this was the first time television was ever mentioned in a film?

Earth vs the Spider (1958)

Yet another film where a giant mutated bug battles the Earth's ultimate warriors: 1950s US teenagers!

A giant mutant spider begins to wreak havoc in a small US town. This is after it is "killed" by bug spray and then apparently bought back to life by rock & roll! Finally, the spider has to be defeated in it's lair by teenage couple Mike (Eugene Persson) and Carol (June Kenney) and their science geek teacher (Ed Kemmer) using the power of the national grid.

This is yet another creature feature film though has some interesting plot points to help elevate it above the usual dross level of these films. It still isn't great though but at least can be fairly interesting at times.