Espionage (1937)

A bright and breezy crime and spy drama set aboard an amazingly smooth sleeper train.

With Europe heading towards war, the newspapers are keen to trace a well known arms manufacturing tycoon. For reasons, a newspaper decides to send a cheeky mystery novelist along for the job instead of an actual reporter! Kenneth Stevens (Edmund Lowe) does also happen to be a violin virtuoso though which could be handy as the tycoon Kronsky (Paul Lukas) is a big music lover.

Also after a scoop is Patrica Booth (Madge Evans) who steals her boss's passport when he refuses to send her on this assignment (one wonders just how serious these newspapers were to find out about Kronsky). This proves to be a life saver for Ken when he loses his own passport so he can pose as Patrica's husband. A complication comes when an assassin tries to kill Kronksy, naturally Ken and Patricia get the blame and have to go on the run in Switzerland...

This is a fine film, well paced (though does slow down a bit later on) and with plenty of atmosphere which sometimes is at odds with the light feel to the performances and dialogue (but in a good way). The scenes aboard the train are the best part of the film, though considering it was supposed to be a train pounding on through ther night its remarkably smooth and quiet aboard!

Mighty Jack (1986)

A TV movie made out of the first and last episodes of the Mighty Jack Japanese TV series from 1968. It isn't very coherent though is decent enough sci-fi action.

Mighty Jack is not a person but an organisation formed to combat a mysterious criminal organisation called Q. Atari is abducted by Q, Mighty Jack set off in their advanced submarine to rescue him before he will reveal the location of Mighty Jack's HQ under torture (and they succeed). Instead, Q launch an attack on Earth using hot ice which can't melt and to steal the Mighty Jack submarine...

Or something like that. At times it wasn't that clear what exactly was going on. The film is reasonable enough fun with plenty of Japanese model weapon action and furious running between perils though ultimately is a little dull overall. Hot ice must also be the worst super villain weapon ever.

Secrets of the Lone Wolf (1941)

The Lone Wolf is in action again, using his skills as a former jewel thief to foil a dastardly plot to steal foreign valuables and affecting the war effort.

An unnamed European country has sent valuable jewels to the US to sell so they can continue their fight against the bad guys. The Lone Wolf Michael Lanyard (Warren William) is bought in to use his experience as a former top jewel thief to assist with security. 

Unfortunately, a syndicate of thieves are after the jewels. They want to recruit the Lone Wolf but mistake his valet Jamison (Eric Blore) for him (none of them knew what he looked like?) The Lone Wolf has to keep Jamison safe, as well as the jewels, and keep Inspector Crane (Thurston Hall) off his back!

A fine entry in the Lone Wolf series with the usual mix of rapid fire plot twists and swerves. It is best to ignore the plot holes and coincidences and just enjoy the smooth and comfortable performances by the leads. 

The 23 (1979)

Two cockney criminals (Tommy Godfrey and George Sweeney) break into an office to break into the safe, but this isn't a blag from the Sweeney, this is a promotional film from the General Post Office for it's fancy new Number 23 teleprinter! George becomes obsessed with the machine while his old man works on the safe and helpfully reads out from the manual all of the swish new features. This is great fun, how a promotional film should be done. I certainly want to buy a 23 after seeing this, though i guess eBay will be required these days...

King Dinosaur (1955)

Even by the standards of the day and genre this is a pretty appalling little film. 

A new planet which supports life is spotted close to Earth. A rocket (which looks remarkably like a V-2) is sent there with four human explorers. The four, which includes two men and two women including William Bryant and Wanda Curtis, waste no time in hooking up. They also get lost, while exploring this alien planet packed with life which is remarkably like Earth's...

Finally, they get menaced by a giant reptile and need to flee the planet. They also decide to nuke the planet (using an atom bomb they have been carrying around this whole time) as they leave and wipe out life there...

So, this is an awful film over filled with stock footage, scientific stupidity, misogyny, animal cruelty and pointless nuclear devastation. It is also pretty slow and tedious too. This might be one of the worst films ever made, unlike other 1950s science fiction films it lacks much in the way of camp or charm to compensate for the nonsense. Terrible.

Quest of the Delta Knights (1993)

Hilariously bad cod-medieval sword and sorcery nonsense. 

The land is under the cruel thumb of Manneryjay (Olivia Hussey) and her henchman Lord Vultare (David Warner). A secret society of good knights (called the Delta Knights) is seeking secret knowledge of Atlantis to give them the power to bring down Maydeed and company. 

The Delta Knights agent is Raydoor (somewhat confusingly also David Warner) who finds a young man called Tee (Corbin Allred) who may be the person prophesied to discover the secrets of Archimedes, though Leonardo de Vinci (David Kreigel) is also called upon to help...

This is an amazingly bad film with a plot which makes little sense, cheap sets, cheaper acting on the most part. It does have a strange camp charm though and some of the situations and dialogue are so ridiculous you can't help but laugh (unintentionally). What were they thinking?

Eegah (1962)

A very curious film indeed, and rather awful.

Teenager Roxy (Marilyn Manning) encounters a huge tall man at night (and faints natch). Later on, her father (Arch Hall Snr) heads into the desert to look for signs of this man and goes missing himself. 

Roxy heads into the desert with mediocre pop singer Tom (Arch Hall Jr) to look for him. They discover a cave man (Richard Kiel) has somehow survived away from civilisation and has taken Roxy's father prisoner, and naturally the cave man takes a liking to Roxy...

Some list this as among the worst films of all times... and they are probably right. The story is terrible and makes no sense and the acting is wooden. We also have some truly awful pop songs to pad the film out. The only good thing about the film is seeing Richard Kiel, who at least has a suitably menacing presence.