PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Convoy 1940

Convoy 1940 Written by Patrick Kirwan and Pen Tennyson, directed by Pen Tennyson. Pat was the great-grandson of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Sadly Pat died in 1941, he was killed in an airplane crash while he was serving in the Royal Navy. Another selection from The British Film library from Network.

A mix of romantic melodrama and WWII naval activities. Clive Brook is the commander of a Royal Navy cruiser that's been assigned to meet a convoy in the North Sea and escort it to Britain. They run into a spot of bother from Jerry's battleships. One of the ships in the convoy had fallen behind and it's captured by the Germans.

On board the lagging ship is Clive's ex-wife, the German's use her as bait, they send a fake message about the ship sinking to try to lure English ships into an attack. It almost works when the former lover tries the divert the ship he's on to help. Clive bungs him in the brig for that. Later the guy dies being a hero. Lucky for Clive's ex a British battleship shows up and turns the German sub into an oily smudge.

I thought it was quite decent despite the romantic angle. It's a good look at the life of the men who protected the ships during the war. Lots of them were lost at sea. Some of the Navy footage was shot under real war time conditions. Good cast and nice production values. Glad I've seen it, might not get back to this one so soon.

Science Fiction Sunday 657

Doctor Who 0035 The Faceless Ones Six part story that aired April 8 to May 13 1967. Written by David Ellis and Malcolm Hulke, directed by Gerry Mill. Linking script by Michael Stevens, read by Frazier Hines.

Between the DVD and the CD releases there are multiple versions of this partially lost story. One and three are the only complete episodes, they were first released in 2003 as part of The Reign Of Terror VHS box set, in 2004 they were included in the Lost In Time DVD set. When I watched the series for the first time in 2013 I watched those 2 episodes back then. I didn't have the audio CDs back then and neither did the local library system.

 

The 2020 3 disc DVD set has color and B&W versions of the whole 6 part story, episodes 1 & 3, and Telesnap versions of the missing episodes. I wound up watching the B&W animated version with the missing episodes inserted in the run.

 

The Tardis lands in the middle of the Gatwick Airport runway. An airport security officer sees them exit the police call box and gives chase when they scatter. Polly hides in Chameleon Tours hanger and sees a murder done. Polly is seen and runs away. She finds the Doctor and Jamie and tells them what happened. They see the dead man and the Doctor tells them that the man was killed by a weapon not available on the Earth at that time. They leave to report the death and on the way Polly is kidnapped when she lags behind.

 

The corpse isn't there when they bring the authorities to the hanger. We've been seeing stuff that the Doctor hasn't and it turns out that the Chameleon Tours is really a front for aliens. They've been infiltrating the airport personal with a machine that can turn one of their race into a human. They need a person to do it and they've been kidnapping the passengers on their low cost youth package trips. The man Polly saw killed was investigating the company, people had been noticing that their family members have gone missing after flying Chameleon.

 

Since it's a 6 part story it moves along a bit slower than the 4 parters. There are a good number of characters introduced and plenty of things happening. The authorities don't believe the Doctor at first but things get too weird to deny his story. There's plenty of running about Gatwick and people get kidnapped and released quite often. Jamie winds up on one of the Chameleon flights and we get to see the alien space base. The aliens have been miniaturizing the humans and storing them in drawers.

 

The Doctor eventually defeats the head alien and the other aliens leave without any more struggle. Ben and Polly decide to leave the crew as they are back to their time. Jamie and the Doctor exit stage left to look for the Tardis. All in all a fair decent story

There's a commentary with a few of the surviving people involved with the show and old interviews with ones that have passed away. I listened to those and enjoyed them. The only other special features are the making of for the animation version and some PDFs. Still, more than enough to get through. I didn't listen to the audio version yet but will during the week.

Friday Night Movies 856

Reset 2017 Screenplay by Zha Muchun, directed by Ghang, produced by Jackie Chan. The director is Korean, they filmed in Busan with a Korean crew.

The movie delivers on fancy action scenes wrapped in a time travel story involving parallel universes. Mi Yang is a scientist on the time travel project. Some baddie kidnaps her son to force her to steal the project's data. He kills the son at the meet up and Mi goes back in time to save her boy. He also blows up parts of the company's large fancy tower. He first try at saving her son doesn't work so Mi goes back in time.

The time travel project only has been able to send animals back in time 1 hour and 50 mins, the test subjects have a small but deadly amount of DNA damage. If I understand it correctly the person who travels in time winds up in a parallel universe. That doesn't seem like real time travel to me. If she manages to save her son in the parallel universe that would mean she didn't save her own son who's still dead. Best not to think about it, I guess.

There's action and more action as the baddies chase Mi around the streets and the through the building. She's pretty darn capable at the stunts for being a scientist. All the action is large and noisy, like it's been turned up to 12, there's nothing subtle going on, it's all in your face. There are so many ticking time bombs the noise becomes kind of wearing, especially at 105 mins. I wasn't sorry I saw it but I didn't appreciate it's lack of humor and seriousness. I'm not that interested in picking up a copy but I tempted to do so for our second feature.

Action U.S.A. 1989 Story by John Stewart and David Reskin, screenplay by David Reskin, additional material by James Desmarais, directed by John Stewart. John's a veteran stuntman who also wrote and directed a few movies. I can't say I've seen any of his other films.

A much more comical, and enjoyable, take on the action film. A drug dealer is gunned down by some baddies but his girlfriend manages to escape. The baddies think she might know where the diamonds are and she's seen their faces. She gets picked up by a couple of FBI agents and they chase each other around the back roads of Texas.

There's plenty of bullets flying, car chases, and occasionally there's something blowing up. There's a spectacular explosion near the end that was made that much enjoyable by all the burning tires flying through the air. We all seem to love a good explosion.

Cameron Mitchell is the boss but the diamonds belong to the Mob. His goons can't get the girl so Cameron brings in a hitman who's played by Ross Hagen. Some might remember Ross from Sidehackers. He's also a producer on the film that might be his best effort. It's not a great film, kind of clumsy in fact, but it's a happy bit of business that made me laugh out loud more than once. Worth a look for those that like an action film and have a good sense of humor. I've put it on my Want List.

Barricade 2012

 

Barricade 2012 Written by Michaelbrent Collings, directed by Andrew Currie. A Canadian horror film that's part of a 6 pack of films from Image.

Eric McCormack is a psychologist who works too much, his wife wants him to spend more time with his kids, her desire is to spend a Christmas up at the family's cabin in the mountains. The movie jumps a year, mom has died, Eric takes the kids to the mountain cabin just before Christmas.

Once inside the cabin strange things start to happen. Eric sees something or someone in among the trees. When he looks back they are gone. They all hear strange noises. The son gets a cough and then seems sick. The daughter and Eric soon are coughing too. Something seems to be attacking the house but it doesn't break in.

Turns out it was a bad fever and it was all a dream. Well, except for tying up the local store owner who takes care of the cabin while the family is away. He showed up, Eric knocked him down and tied him up to store in the attic. That was 3 days ago. Police show up and rescue him. Eric and the kids are all fine now.

It might be the better of the lot but it's still below average to me. I was disappointed in all being a fever dream. It is a good reminder that visiting the woods in the winter is dangerous and it's foolish to go there. Lucky for me it was short, only 82 mins.I wouldn't bother with this one again. Big fail for the whole 6 pack.

Airborne 2011

 

Airborne 2011 Screenplay by Paul Chronnell, directed by Dominic Burns. Part of a six pack of films from Image. I'm skipping The Frankenstein Theory because I blogged about it in 2020.

Most of the action takes place on a plane that's flying through the night from London to New York. The flight starts normal enough, it's not very full, only a dozen or so passengers. As the flight plows on one of them disappears, then another and another. Things get worse when the cabin crew are all found dead. When the plane goes off course, the air traffic control room notice and report it. Mark Hamill is in charge of the control room, at least until some secret service sorts take over. 

As the story develops we find there's a priceless vase on the plane, it's worth a $100 mill, someone wants to steal it. Unfortunately the vase contains a death god that takes over people and turns them into killers. Things turn pretty rough and most everyone is killed. One of the people left near the end turns off the autopilot and lets the plane fall into the sea. He was hoping to kill off the death god but that failed because it jumped to Mark Hamill over the radio.

The basic monster on a plane could have been decent but the script let it down. Right from the opening cliche, it's controller Mark's last day, to the monster escaping finish, it's all familiar. I doubt I'll watch this one over. So far, none of the films in this 6 film set are worth re-watching.

It's All Happening 1963

It's All Happening 1963 Written by Leigh Vance, directed by Don Sharp. After this film Don would direct a good number of movies for Hammer Film Productions and others. You might have seen The Kiss Of The Vampire, Curse Of The Fly, Rasputin The Mad Monk, The Face of Fu Manchu, Jules Verne's Rocket To The Moon or Psychomania. I know I have.

It's All Happening is part of Network's DVD series The British Film. My absolute fav DVD series. There are over 500 releases in the series and a small number of them have more than one film. It's pretty close to 600 titles and they add the new titles all the time.

Tommy Steele was an actor and a singer who had already made 5 films by the time he starred in It's All Happening. He'd had several hit records and he appeared on lots of TV. He's still working at 84 years old. He's also still married to Ann Donoghue, they married in 1960. He was awarded the Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in 2020.

In IAH Tommy plays a good hearted but shy guy who works for a music company. His boss treats him poorly but he's well received at the orphanage he grew up in, he brings presents and treats for the kids. It's here we see get to see that Tommy is a good singer, he does a number with the orphans, it turns up again in the final scene.

There's plenty of strife in Tommy's life. Angela Douglas plays his girlfriend, she's on his case to stand up more for himself, she also works at the same company. His boss doesn't like him, he keeps telling Tommy to work harder, he'll eventually make up some baloney and have Tommy fired. Tommy spends a lot of his work time searching for new talent and this comes in real handy when the orphanage develops some cash flow problems.

Tommy decides to put on a concert and get some of the talent he's works with to come and do a number. Their written invites don't get mailed and the night of the concert no one is turning up to sing or dance. While Angela tries to find some of the acts, Tommy faces his fears, steps on stage and gets a happy ending.

Tommy is a charming fellow, I liked him and I liked his movie. I liked seeing Bernard Bresslaw, Jean Harvey, Michael Medwin, Walter Hudd and all the rest of the cast I didn't know. I wasn't as big a fan of some of the singers, some were a bit soppy. I didn't know most of the entertainers but I'm not as fond of pre-Beatles pop as I am of post-Beatles pop. All in all, entertained, I'd want to watch it again sometime.

The Love Lottery 1954

The Love Lottery 1954 Story by Charles Neilson Gattey and Zelma Bramley Moore, screenplay by Harry Kurnitz, additional dialogue and scenes by Monja Danischewsky, directed by Charles Crichton. It's part of Network's The British Film series.

David Niven is a movie star, popular for his romantic adventure rolls, and he's become tired of the female fans intruding on his life. It's affecting his dreams, in the opening sequence he dreams the gals have pulled off his head and are passing it about like it's a basketball. David wants a vacation from all the pressures but all the studio can think of is turning his alone time into publicity by schmoozing the locals.

David buys out his contract and tries to drum up interest in him doing a stage play but that pans out. He decides to set up camp in a small Italian village near Lake Como. Herbert Lom is the head of a gambling syndicate, he manipulates David into being the prize in a lottery. They sell a quarter of a million tickets and Peggy Cummins wins. She spends some time with David and winds up marrying her boyfriend. That's OK with David, he'd fallen for Herbert's mathematician, played by Anne Vernon.

It's not much better than average. You'd think this all the people working on the story and script they've have something a bit sharper.I'd still watch it again.

Chromeskull: Laid To Rest 2 2011

 

Chromeskull: Laid To Rest 2 2011 Written by Kevin Bocarde and Robert Hall, directed by Robert Hall. The third of 3 movies crammed on one disc is a 6 film 2 disc set from Image. Another one I can't say I enjoyed. A maniac serial killer slashes a couple of people who wronged him in the first film. Then there's more and more killing, none of which was of much interest. Well, all three movies on the disc were losers to me. Saves me watching them again.

Madison County 2012

 

Madison County 2012 Written and directed by Eric England. Slasher film set in hillbilly country. It's unpleasant and the same old same old. The monsters are just people, less interesting to me. Another on in the set that I won't be watching again.

Lovely Molly 2012

 

Lovely Molly 2012 Written and directed by Eduardo Sánchez. Part of an Image 2 DVD set of 6 horror films called imaginatively 6 Pack Of Horror. There's nothing lovely about Molly, she's gotten tangled up in the supernatural and slits her throat at the beginning of the movie, most of which is told as a flashback. Eduardo is the co-director of The Blair Witch Project, one of the very few horror DVDs that I've sold after watching it. Thinking that might happen here, not a movie I would need to see again. I'll watch the rest of the movies in the set and see what happens.