PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Four Just Men 1939

The Four Just Men 1939 It was released in the US in 1941 under the name The Secret Four. Based on the 1905 Edgar Wallace novel of the same name, screenplay by Angus MacPhail, Sergei Nolbandov and Roland Pertwee, directed by Walter Forde. Roland is Jon Pertwee's father, besides writing a fair number of films he was an actor. I've seen three other films he wrote:  The Ghoul 1933, King Solomon's Mines 1937 and Pimpernel Smith 1941. Andrew wrote the screenplay for the 1931 version of The Ghost Train, later he would write some films for George Formby. Walter directed a few films I've seen, The Ghost Train 1931, The Ringer 1931, Rome Express 1932, Chu Chin Chow 1934 and the 1941 Arthur Askey film The Ghost Train.

The four just men are actor Humphrey Mansfield, played by Hugh Sinclair, playwright James Brodie, played by Griffith Jones, fashion house owner Léon Poiccard, played by Francis L Sullivan, and foreign correspondent James Terry, played by Frank Lawton. They've banded together to punish criminals.

As the film opens Terry escapes a Prussian prison just before he's executed. He's got some good intel about 5th columnists inside the British government. A big problem with WW2 looming on the horizon.The four just men do their thing, they are ruthless, the baddies are barely a match. There's plenty of murder, some fist fights and gun shooting, plenty of running about and a slew of interesting characters.

The version of the film on the Internet Archive is the one with the tacked on anti-Nazi ending, the original film didn't call the baddies German out rightly. I enjoyed it and would welcome another view down the road. I've seen quite a few of the films made from Edgar Wallace's books. Lucky for me I've still got a few more adaptions left to see. Not many though.

Half Shot At Sunrise 1930

Half Shot At Sunrise 1930 James Ashmore Creelman wrote the story and the screenplay with some help from Anne Caldwell, Ralph Spence and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. The film was directed by Paul Sloane who had just directed Wheeler and Woolsey in The Cuckoos.

Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey are joined once again by Dorothy Lee. The guys play AWOL soldiers running about Paris during WWI. They try to avoid the military police by dressing as military officers. They are always on the lookout for the ladies. Bert takes a shine to Dorothy's character, the daughter of a Colonel, and Robert takes a liking to the Colonel's girlfriend. They steal the Colonel's car and run about town with the MPs hot on their trail.

Edna May Oliver turns up as the Colonel's wife. There's plenty of the usual running about and slapstick. The jokes are fairly decent and there's much less singing. Everything works out for the guys in the end and I had a laugh along the way.

 

Friday Night Movies 785

Trailer Park Shark is a 2017 big ass shark comedy. It's directed by Griff Furst, son of Stephen Furst. Griff wrote the movie with his brother Nathan Furst, Marcy Holland, Matt Muschamp and Xander Wolfe.

The movie is set in a squalled trailer park in Louisiana. A rich scumbag wants the park gone so he hires a stupid scumbag to blow up the levee. It floods the park and most of the trailer park residents are washed away with their trailers. A few survive and to make their day worse, somehow, a big ass hungry shark has come calling. Oh, yeah, he's an electric shark. His electric discharge knocks people out and shorts out electrical systems in boats.

The CGI is fair to middlin', you can see that shark top looks a bit low rez. Generally the physical effects work, the only one that was annoying was the rain effect. They had a physical spray system set up but it was so small you could see where the rain ended on the water. The physical gore is a bit of a step up over the CGI gore. The movie moves along briskly and there's always some new danger and slaughter.

I did like the movies sense of humor. I laughed out loud a couple of times and it was fun to see the scumbags get some chompin' action. Glad to have seen it and would watch it again.

This Is Not A Movie came out in 2011 and the Wikipedia says it's a Mexican experimental SF film. It's written and directed by Olallo Rubio. Edward Furlong plays three different versions of the same character. It's the end of the world and he's in a hotel room in Las Vegas discussing some philosophical stuff with his other selves. It's pretty artsy fartsy but I did get a good laugh out of one part. A physical gag that had little to do with the lack of story. Edward was pretty good as the different personalities. Sadly I wasn't that interested in his internal monologue. I had gotten the DVD cheap and will keep it. I might never watch it again. Who knows.

The Lost Patrol is a 1934 Boris Karloff film. It's adapted from a Philip MacDonald story called Patrol by Garrett Fort, the screenplay is by Dudley Nichols, the director is John Ford. Victor McLaglen, Wallace Ford, Reginald Denny, Billy Bevan, Alan Hale and JM Kerrigan are some of the cast I knew. Merian C Cooper is an executive producer and Max Stein created the music.

It's a WWI film, set in the desert of Mesopotamia, with a troop of lost soldiers. They've been beleaguered by some spirituous Arabs who snipe at them with sad efficiency. The troop find an oasis and camp out, resting themselves and their horses. In the night two men are killed and the horses stolen. The troop are randomly picked off by the hidden enemy. Help arrives in the form of an airplane. The pilot lands and is killed.

As their despair grows Boris goes mad and he becomes a danger to himself and the troop. He's eventually killed by his own delusion. Rescue comes but nearly too late. It's all pretty bleak and horrible. Not much by way of humor going on here. It's very much like a horror movie, the kind with a human monster. It's still better than the other two films. I might even watch it again someday.

Josser In The Army 1932

I sure didn't care that much for Josser In The Army. It's a 1932 British war comedy, the story is by Herbert Sargent and Con West, Frank Launder wrote the screenplay and it was directed by Norman Lee. The DVD cover above has a mistake on it, listing the director as Marcel Varnel, the DVD I have does not have that wrong credit on the cover.

Mostly I didn't care that much for the Jimmy Josser character, he's played by Ernest Lotina. I didn't find him funny, more annoying, he put me off the whole movie. The slapstick is especially sloppy and contrived. Not going to be one I dip into again. This DVD came as part of a four pack of military movies from The British Film collection, it;s much cheaper than buying the individual films. They have several 4 packs of films, I've been rooting them out and ordering them. I should start a data base, they are over 300 films in the series, I can only keep a few in my head at a time.

A Yank In Libya 1942

A Yank In Libya is a 1942 movie about an American correspondent who uncovers a Nazi plan to stir up the Arabs in Libya. The IMDb Trivia page says it was first broadcast on TV in 1945. It stars Walter Woolf King, Joan Woodbury, H B Warner, Duncan Renaldo and Harvey Parke as Parkyarkarkus. Walter is the correspondent, he's kind of an ass, and he's being chased by a Sheik's men. He meets up with Joan, she's a British spy, and Parkyarkarkus, who's from Brooklyn. There's some running about, a few murders and some jokes. It's not a great movie, that Walter is an annoying guy, but it's entertaining enough to get a 5 from me. It scores a 4.6 but with only 146 votes. I got the movie on an Alpha Video DVD but you can see it on YouTube and Dailymotion.

Hitler - Beast Of Berlin 1939

Hitler - Beast Of Berlin is a 1939 anti-Nazi film with Alan Ladd in a secondary role. It was re-released the same year as Beast Of Berlin, in 1940 as Goose Step and a couple of years later as Hell's Devils. It was adapted from Shepard Traube's story Goose Step, the screenplay was by Fred Myton, the director is Sam Newfield. The story is about the resistance in Germany in 1938-1939. Fighting the Nazis is a tough and dangerous job. Many of the resistance fighters are killed or worse. It was all pretty sad but a decent film. Sadly the Alpha Video copy is none too great.