PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Man With A Gun 1958

Man With A Gun 1958 Screenplay by Michael Winner, direction by Montgomery Tully. Part of The British Film series from Network.

Lee Patterson is an insurance investigator. He's looking into a fire at a nightclub owned by John Le Mesurier. Rona Anderson plays John's niece, Bill Nagy plays a singer's agent and Marne Maitland plays a gangster who's in the protection racket. I see most of these actors in episodes of British TV shows from the 50s and 60s, good competent performers. The story and script are a bit above average. It moves along OK, there's some rough stuff and a bit of romance. I found a copy on RareLust but there is a DVD that I might have to pick up the next time Network has a sale on the series. I'd watch this again.

The Rainmakers 1935

The Rainmakers 1935 Story by Albert Traynor and Fred Guiol, screenplay by Grant Garrett and Leslie Goodwins, directed by Fred Guiol.

Robert Woolsey is a rainmaker and Bert Wheeler is a farmer in the Midwest. Before Robert can help the locals by unleashing his rainmaking device a sand storm blows in. The farmers are mad and blame him. He escapes and takes refuge in Bert's house. The house blows away, the boys were safe in the root cellar, so Bert joins Robert in a trip to California for his next job.

The manager of the bank asked Robert to come see if he can make it rain, the fields are parched and the farmers could loose their crops and their farms if the dry spell won't break. The big rich farmer in the area is using the poor farmer's financial state to ram rod them into supporting a water system to pull water from a lake outside of town. He's making money either way, first by gouging the local farmer's by inflating the cost of the water system, and he stands to get some of their land real cheap if they can't come up with the money to buy into the project.

The bank manager has extended the bank's assets trying to help the farmers by not foreclosing on their loans. His daughter is played by Dorothy Lee and she's Bert's romantic interest here. Bert and Robert break a bunch of stuff before they blow up two locomotives in the big finale. It's fairly entertaining but the locomotives sequence goes on a bit too long. Still, I got a few good laughs out of it anyway. Only 4 more features to go.

 

 

The Nitwits 1935

The Nitwits 1935 Story by Stuart Palmer, screenplay by Fred Guiol and Al Boasberg, direction by George Stevens.

Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey work in a cigar stand in a building where a radio station operates. Bert really wants to write songs and Robert is a bit of an inventor. They get mixed up in a murder case with the usual chaotic results. Fred Keating, Betty Grable and Willie Best are in the cast. 

Not quite as much fun as some of their films and the black characters are quite stereotyped. Just barely average.

Science Fiction Sunday 635

Eternal Code 2019 Written and directed by Harley Wallen.

Another greedy corporate prick movie. Richard Tyson is board member of a company that's developed some sort of immortality goo. He's going to make a lot of money from the rich people who want a bit of the everlasting. CEO lady has some issues with the project and plans to shut the project down. Richard gets hold of some low-level scumbags, his kind of people but stupider, to kidnap the CEO lady and put pressure on the rest of the board to vote his way.

The whole plan goes haywire because of the incompetence of the villains and the interference of Damien Chinappi. He's a homeless vet who helps the daughter of the CEO lady. There's plenty of running about, fighting and gun play. Some of the fights were a bit long winded. Some parts of the script were fine, other bits, not so much. No matter, the villain is put to rest and the family reunited.

I thought it was below average, story wise, but I'm never so hot on the evil corp creep types. I think with a beefed up script it could have been more entertaining. It's got a score of 4.6 on the IMDb but that's sure some sort of anomaly. A lot of people gave it a 7 and a good number gave it a 10. Maybe the scam voters have figured out how to be less obvious by voting a 7, who knows. It's an odd thing. Reminding me that so many things we have are ruined by people.

Horizon 2019 Written by Paul Dudbridge, Chris Marshfield and Simon Pearce, directed by Paul Dudbridge and Simon Pearce. A British picture set and filmed in Bristol. It started as a web series in 2015, the two seasons were edited down into this movie.

It's an alien invasion story. The big alien ship arrives one day and it sends the people of Bristol into a panic. The military sends fighter jet but they are EMP'd out of the sky. A family decides to leave the city and take hold up a few miles out of the city. They meet up with Edward Coleridge and help him with his mission. He lived in the 1860s and was taken by the aliens. He tells them the aliens are nice people and they want to save the humans from a worse alien threat. Shortly after two alien ships turn up over Bristol.

Edward's got to get a device he found back in the 1860s, it's from a secretly buried scout ship of the bad aliens. They've been kidnapping and mutating human's for hundreds of years. Edward wants to send the scout ship back to the bad alien ship with a bomb in it.

I thought it was below average until I got hep to the web series situ. The truncated version jumps around from one bit to another, making it kind of hard to tell what it would be like if we had the whole story. Still, you can tell that the so-so acting and dialog isn't going to get better with more of it. That's the weakest link here, they do fairly well with the physical side of the picture. Mostly the CGI is fine. You can buy the series at the Horizon site. I didn't. Too much to watch already.

Friday Night Movies 836

Dead Rising: Watchtower 2015 Screenplay by Tim Carter, directed by Zach Lipovsky.

Another zombie film based on a video game. I hadn't heard of the video game, don't play them. In this universe the zombie plague has happened and they've developed a drug called Zombrex that keeps the infected from going full on zombie. The military have a secret plan, they've delivered a bad batch of Zombrex to a center in a made up town in Oregon, that results in a zombie outbreak and a rumor that the drug has become ineffectual. The zombie management agency is having a hard time getting things under control and the military gets called in to help.

A stubbly faced reporter uncovers the real plot, the military wants to inject all the infected with a device that delivers the zombie drug in timed dosed. It will also let you know when your supply is running low so you can top up. The chip in the drug device can also be used to track the infected. When it was suggested originally there was a push back from the government, too much invasion of privacy. The General in charge thinks that the current outbreak will be enough to tip the balance in his favor and he'll allowed to go ahead with the chipping program.

There's plenty of zombie action but it's not enough to make me think there's something new here. Evil government employees or military agencies aren't that interesting to me anymore. The cast is fine, especially Dennis Haysbert as the General in charge of the plot. He's really a bastard. The film was barely average for me. No need to see it again, glad it was on Amazon Prime.

Dead Rising: Endgame 2016 Screenplay by Tim Carter and Michael Farris, directed by Pat Williams.

The evil General is back, his drug device program has gone forward and the implants are commonly referred to as chips. As our stubble faced reporter soon learns, there's more evil afoot with those damn chips. They can be remotely triggered to overdose the infected and kill them. His program is to see that gets done and all the infected are dead. No more plague. The manufacturer of Zombrex isn't liking that too much, where will all their cash come from then? The CEO has a secret plan to unleash a new strain. One of her staff rats her out to the news and the stubble faced reporter is on the case.

He gathers a few people to take with him and most of them die. There's a few more plot points to juice it up but it's not doing much for me. It was nice to see Billy Zane as the mad scientist, same with Ian Tracey as a scumbag. The rest of the cast were fine. I'm thinking I'm even less likely to want to watch this again than I am the first movie.

Secret Of The Red Orchid 1962

Secret Of The Red Orchid 1962 German title is Das Rätsel der roten Orchidee. Based on an Edgar Wallace novel, screenplay by Egon Eis, directed by Helmut Ashley. Another Rialto film production shot in Hamburg with location shooting in London and Cuxhaven Harbour.

Gangsters from Chicago bring their typewriters to London and blast their way into society. Their demand is simple, pay up or die. Klaus Kinski and Eric Pohlmann play rival hoods from the Windy City. Their brutal methods don't go unnoticed.

Christopher Lee plays an American FBI agent sent to help Scotland Yard. Christopher spoke German in the German release and his voice was dubbed by someone else in the English release. Go figure. Adrian Hoven plays Scotland Yard Inspector Weston and Eddi Aren't plays a comical butler.

It seems a bit slow at times but there is a fair bit of action and a few laughs. Glad to have checked it out. You can check it out on YouTube in the link in the title.

 

Kentucky Kernels 1934

Kentucky Kernels 1934 Screenplay by Lee Marcus and HN Swanson, directed by George Stevens with an assist from Jean Yarbrough.

Robert Woolsey is the Great Elmer and Bert Wheeler is Willie, they're a couple of out of work magicians. They help a guy adopt a kid, Spanky McFarland plays Spanky, you might know him from the Little Rascals. The guy elopes and The Great Elmer and company get stuck with Spanky. Turns out he's a genial little fellow who likes breaking windows.

Mary Carisle, Noah Beery, Margaret Dumont and Willie Best appear. I can't think of a time when Willie Best appearing in a film didn't cheer me up. Sadly not all of his roles are up to his talent, here he's got a good size part and plenty of stuff to do. Bob Hope called Willie the "best actor I know" while working with him on The Ghost Breakers.

Spanky inherits some money and the boys go along to Kentucky where they get into a family feud with the Wakefields. There's plenty of running about and yelling with a bit of romance and a lot of gun shooting near the end. It all turns out well for the boys in the end. Another fun film.

The Secret Of The Black Widow 1963

The Secret Of The Black Widow 1963 A German film called Das Geheimnis der schwarzen Witwe by the locals. Based on Louis Weinert-Wilton's novel The Queen Of The Night, screenplay by Alexandra Becker, Rolf Becker and José Luis Guarner. Similar enough to Wallace in story and style.

 

Someone is killing the members of a South American expedition. They are killed with a poison dart from a air pistol. The police are digging around. There are plenty of suspicious characters but they aren't talking. Klaus Kinski, Werner Peters, Eddi Arent and Karin Dor are the only case members I knew by face or by name. Some of them are up to no good. It's got a fairly decent story but it's a bit pokey and not very exciting. I found a copy on YouTube and provided a link to it. You might like it. I'd watch it again someday but it would be after watching the films based on Wallace's works first.

Cockeyed Cavaliers 1934

Cockeyed Cavaliers 1934 Screenplay by Edward Kaufman, Grant Garrett, Ralph Spence and Ben Holmes, directed by Mark Sandrich.

Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey live in medieval England. Bert's a bit of kleptomaniac and even though Robert tries to keep him out of trouble, he gets caught and they both wind up in the stocks. A young man helps them escape and they run off, chased by the sheriff. Dorothy Lee plays the young man, it turns out she's been hiding from the local Duke who wants to marry her. She's not wanting anything to do with that. Bert falls for her and figures a way to get her out of her predicament. It's pretty much the usual fare, some gags, some running about and a couple of songs. Fun.

Hips, Hips, Hooray 1934

Hips, Hips, Hooray 1934 Screenplay by Bert Kalmar, Edward Kaufman and Harry Ruby, directed by Mark Sandrich.

Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey are cosmetic salesman hawking their wares on the street. They get involved with a cosmetic company who have a musical radio show with plenty of pretty dancers.

The boys get up a fund raiser for this poor girl, she has no clothes. That's Doris McMahon in her pre-code costume. You don't see her this closeup in the movie, she appears way in the background. Probably for the best, no use inflaming the youth of the day with a flash of bare hip.

Bert and Robert misplace some company securities and their manager steals them. Now the boys are in trouble with the law and they must use all their limited brain power to get themselves out of this pickle. They decide to get into a car race. That's a good place to keep a low profile.

Eventually things get sorted out with gags and musical numbers. Thelma Todd and Dorothy Lee provide some romance, there's plenty of action once the car racing starts, and there's a happy ending for the guys. Still enjoying the guy's films and there still are several to go.