The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957)

The long and unwieldily title is only the start of this film's weirdness.

With their men having sailed away to not return, a group of Viking women (including Abby Dalton and Susan Cabot) decide to head off in a ship and look for them. They encounter a sea serpent in a far off sea and end up shipwrecked and the prisoners of a strange race... who have enslaved their missing men folk! 

Despite the rather unpromising premise, this isn't that bad a film despite the obviously minute budget. It is a bit cheesy, campy and unlikely but is plenty of fun. 

Everyone looks like they walked off a California beach of course, not the ancient Scandinavian hinterland. The serpent is a bit of a let down though.

Airport (1935)

A superb slice of pre-war nostalgia about London's international airport, no it wasn't Heathrow back then it was at Croydon! This film looks back at the operations and activities at the airport as international air travel first got going in earnest. 

From the aircraft themselves, to maintenance, and the various other support services. Everything was optimistic and exciting as the world was beginning to open up. No one really thought or knew about the dark storm clouds soon to be on the horizon though the swastikas on the inbound flights from Germany could give you a clue. An excellent film from the Shell Historical Film Archive. 

All Lit Up (1920)

Snub Pollard is a dandy who is hanging around a park chasing butterflies in a net. After some flirting (with girls not butterflies) he ends up in a jazz cafe and more mayhem ensues. Snub finally ends up in jail in this short piece of slapstick. A decent enough silent comedy though without making much sense or being that subtle. 

Fine for what it is but not really in the first division of silent movie comedies. Ernest Morrison plays a good role as one of the children Snub ends up having to look after at one stage.

Please Sir! (1971)

Feature length spin-off versions of popular sit-coms were common in the 1970s and can be a mixed bag, Please Sir! just about manages to get away with it.

Hedges (John Alderton) is the idealistic teacher of class 5C who are basically a teenager (although they all look about 25 of course) version of the Bash Street Kids. His class complain that they have never been taken away to a camp holiday like the other classes so Hedges manages to persuade the headmaster (Erik Chitty) and other senior staff to take class 5C to a rural camp, which doesn't half resemble a prison camp...

Class 5C soon get up to no good involving nearby gypsies and posh children from another school. Hedges is also pursued by a flight attendant (Jill Kerman) and his colleague (Patsy Rowlands)...

This isn't a bad film though the comedy is often a bit corny. Taking the TV cast away on holiday was one of the usual ways to extend a TV show into a movie and it works pretty well in this case.

Batman (1966)

I'm usually not a fan of superhero movies, especially the 21st century's bombardment of them, i always feel they take themselves far too seriously... and that is why the first Batman movie is brilliant because it does just the opposite.

A long-form version of the classic Batman series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. As this is a big screen outing for the story one super villain is not enough, instead we have four! The Penguin (Burgess Meredith), Riddler (Frank Gorshin), Joker (Cesar Romero) and Catwoman (Lee Meriweather) team up with a dastardly plan to turn the UN Security Council into powder and extort billions in cash from the world governments.

The bad guys need to get rid of Batman as well but as usual their far too complicated schemes go wrong. There is an interesting subplot though as Bruce Wayne falls in love with a Russian reporter, not realising she is really Catwoman...

This is a fabulously fun film packed full of camp nonsense including Penguin's submarine which has flippers, Riddler writing messages in the sky using Polaris missiles and the batmobile being joined by the batboat, batbike and even the bathelicopter! The best superhero film there is? Probably.

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.