PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Camp On Blood Island 1958

The Camp On Blood Island 1958 Written by Jon Manchip White and directed by Val Guest. A Hammer film about a Japanese prisoner of war camp in British Malaya while it was occupied by Japan. The 12th most popular movie in the UK that year.

The Emperor announces Japan's surrender in August 1945. The commander of the Blood Island camp says he'll kill everyone in the camp if the Emperor surrenders. Lucky for the inmates he hasn't heard the news yet. The British soldiers have and they work to keep the news from the commander.

A solid script and a good cast. I enjoyed it and would watch it again someday. You can see it on YouTube, see link above, there is a sequel called The Secret of Blood Island.

Friday Night Movies 884

Watusi 1959 Based on King Solomon's Mines by H Rider Haggard, screenplay by James Clavell, directed by Kurt Neumann. Kurt had a decent career that ended early when he died in 1958 at age 50. I've seen a number of his films, all 4 of the  Tarzan pictures he directed, Island Of Lost Men, Rocketship X-M, Kronos, She Devil and The Fly.

In this sequel to the 1950 film King Solomon's Mines the son of Alan Quatermain comes to Tanganyika to seek the diamonds his father talked about. George Montgomery plays the son Harry, David Farrar plays Rick, an old friend of Alan's. They put together a safari and head out of town. Along the way they experience some of the same thrills that Alan experienced in KSM. This film uses quite a bit of footage from KSM, the whole stampede is used, the leopard attacking a tent, as well as many of the long shots. Sadly the new footage and the old footage show don't match up to well. The first film had a good bit of footage that was shot in Africa and this film doesn't have any.

The rescue a red-headed woman, played by Taina Elg, from a tribe of naughty natives who have a reputation for torturing women before they kill them. The natives had killed her father and the other men living in the church mission compound. The film dresses everyone in the cast with similar clothes so they can use more footage from the first film. We laughed at the clumsy attempts to make it fit.

The story isn't too bad and I sort of enjoyed it. I gave it a generous 5 at the IMDb. I might watch it again, I already wasted the money I spent on the DVD from the Warner Archive Collection so it would be a bit of a waste not to watch it when I get around to watching the first movie again.

Blue Panther 1965 Screenplay by Claude Chabrol and Christian-Yve with additional dialogue by Daniel Boulanger, directed by Claude Chabrol. The Marie-Chantal character appeared in a number of novels by Jacques Chazot.

A French, Spanish, Italian and Moroccan comedy spy film. The original French title is Marie-Chantal Contre Dr Kha, the world wide English title is Marie-Chantal Vs Doctor Kha. One of the fellows picked up the Blu-ray from the Kino-Lorber sale that going on through the 19th of this month. Many of their Blu-rays are a tenner. 

On a train a spy convinces Marie-Chantal to hide a blue panther broach. Some men are looking for it and he doesn't want to have it on his person. She's rather naive and agrees. She's quickly involved with a pack of spies and in some danger. She gets some help from her goofy brother and that spy that put her into the soup. There's plenty of running about and yelling, some slapstick and some action.

I got a few laughs out of it and grew to like Marie-Chantal. Her brother is still a goof. There's plenty of interesting buildings and nice Moroccan scenery. I liked it enough to order one at the K-L sale.

Tales Of Robin Hood 1951

Tales Of Robin Hood 1951 Story and screenplay by Leroy H Zehren, directed by James Tinling. One of two pictures Robert L Lippert made for R & L Productions. It was Tinling's last film, though it seems to be cobbled together from the episodes that were shot. Tinling moved into TV and worked through 1960 before retiring. The last work he directed were 5 episodes of Fury. I can't say many of the 50 plus films he directed are ones I've seen, only Mr Moto's Gamble and Charlie Chan In Shanghai for sure.

The first part of the film has Robin's father killed and Robin is taken to live in hiding by the King's right hand man Will Stutely. Robin grows up in the forest and becomes the notorious Robin Hood. Robert Clarke plays Robin and Whit Bissell plays Alan. Robert produced, co-wrote, co-directed and plays the lead in The Hideous Sun Demon. I remember seeing that as a kid and realizing there's not always salvation if your accidentally turned into a monster.

As the film plays out Robin meets Friar Tuck, Maid Marion, Little John and a good number of the baddies. There's sword fighting, arrow shooting and plenty of running through the woods. The production is typical of a TV shoot of the time. The 1955 British TV series with Richard Greene was along the same lines but had a better budget. It did well enough to wind up with 143 episodes by the time they finished. I saw the series when I was a kid and have enjoyed it all over again as an adult.

Nothing too special about Tales Of Robin Hood but it was still entertaining enough to get to the end. Might be more for the RH fan, there's a copy on YouTube for those that might like a go.

The Secret Of Naruto 1957

The Secret Of Naruto 1957 Screenplay by Eiji Yoshikawa, directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa.

There's a plot against the Shogun brewing in Awa and the Shogun has sent a special investigator to the island. A monk needs to get a message to the Shogun, a woman needs to kill the investigator, and Raizô Ichikawa gets involved with the lot.

Information is sparse and the story takes a while to work out. There's a good bit of action, some melodrama, some court intrigue and plenty of vengeance. It's got a nice ending, good sets and interesting locations. The copy on YouTube is a bit fuzzy but watchable. I liked it and would watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 862

It Happened Tomorrow 1944 Based on the one act play The Jest Of Haha Laba by Lord Dunsany, unproduced screenplay by Hugh Wedlock and Howard Snyder, ideas by Lewis R Foster, screenplay by Dudley Nichols and René Clair with additional dialogue by Helene Frainkel, directed by René Clair.

Dick Powell plays the obit writer on a newspaper who wants to be a reporter. The man who runs the newspaper's archives gives Dick a newspaper from the next day and that really changes his life, giving him the chance to write a big story. The story gets him in lots of trouble. Linda Darnell plays a medium in a vaudeville show, Jack Oakie is her father and the star of the act. Both of them get pulled into Dick's life.

A second and third news paper complicate Dick's life even more. There's plenty of running about and yelling with some entertaining jokes and characters. Edgar Kennedy, Edward Brophy, Sig Ruman and Paul Guilfoyle were some of the cast that I knew. I hadn't heard of the film before and was glad to have seen it. I downloaded a copy from YouTube, see link above, as I know I'll want to watch it again sometime. There's is a DVD and Blu-ray available for those that want it.

Buccaneer's Girl 1950 Story by Joe May and Samuel R Golding, screenplay by Joseph Hoffman and Harold Shumate, directed by Frederick de Cordova. Fred was Johnny Carson's producer on The Tonight Show from 1970 to 1992.

Yvonne De Carlo plays a singer who gets captured by the pirate Fredric Baptiste. She escapes the ship when it docks at New Orleans and gets a job at Eliza Lanchester's school for young ladies. On an assignment she finds out that the pirate is really Captain Kingston. He's been acting the pirate to sink the ships of a rich man and selling the cargo to fund ships for others.

It's more a romantic comedy musical than a lady pirate movie. We couldn't remember anyone being killed in any of the fights. It's still fairly pleasant and the baddies get theirs in the end. I didn't care much for the songs but enjoyed the rest of the film. There's a nice Blu-ray out from Kino Lorber. I picked it up during one of their sales. I'll probably watch it again someday.

Friday Night Movies 857

The Golden Blade 1953 Story by John Rich, screenplay by John Rich and William R Cox, directed by Nathan Juran. William was also the producer of the film, he mostly worked in TV, this was his first feature and he's listed on the IMDb as uncredited.

Nathan spent much of his later career directing TV on shows like My Friend Flicka, A Man Called Shenandoah, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, The Time Tunnel, Lost In Space, Land Of The Giants and Daniel Boone. He directed a few films that were of interest to me. His first film was The Black Castle and it was darn good. Some of my other favorites: The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman, The First Men In The Moon, The Brian From Planet Arous and 20 Million Miles To Earth.

The Golden Blade is set in ancient Bagdad. I enjoy the occasional Arabian Night sort of story, they're usually bright and colorful, there's some action and running about, a villain is thwarted and the hero gets the girl. Rock Hudson is the hero, he's the son of a sheik of Basra, he returns home to find his dying father, stabbed by some men in a raid. He finds a clue in a medallion and sets out for Bagdad for some revenge. Piper Laurie is the daughter of the Caliph, George Macready is the Vizier, Gene Evens is the Vizier's son. The Vizier has a lust for power, he's responsible for the raid on Basra, he wants to install Gene as the new Caliph. Some stabbing is going to need to be done.

Rock meets Piper in the shop of a merchant and it's there that the magical Golden Sword comes into his hands. It can cut through steel for the right person. Knowing Piper puts her and Rock in jail and he winds up being her body guard. She manipulates Rock and Gene into a fight for her hand. Gene finds out about the sword and steals it from Rock. Rock eventually comes to find out that Gene and the Vizier are the scumbags that need killing and a bit fight breaks out in the palace. The Caliph is killed, Gene is the new Caliph, Rock and Piper go on the run. The Golden Sword gets stuck in a wall and no one can pull it out except Rock. Some baddies get stabbed and there's a happy ending.

It's fun and a bit goofy with a good cast. The script is the weakest link, it's a bit  Arabian Knight and a bit King Arthur, some of the dialog makes me laugh. I still liked it well enough to order up the DVD, it's part of 5 Rock Hudson film pack that was only a tenner on Amazon. Five movies on three discs, better than some collections. There's a DVDr Archive version for 20 bucks and a Kino Lorber Blu-ray 3 film set for $24. I liked the movie selection on the DVD set better than the Blue-ray set, as well as the cheaper price.

Devil Story 1986 Written and directed by Bernard Launois.

The movie opens with a series of murders by a deformed man in a Nazi uniform. A woman is attacked by a cat but it seems to be in her mind. They stop for the night at the mansion of an old couple. They tell them a tale of crashed ship many years in the past. The wife is attacked by the deformed man and his mother. The mother is killed and the wife escapes. The old man from the mansion blames a black horse and spends much of the movie in a field shooting his shotgun over and over again. Then a mummy shows up and the crashed ship comes out of the cliff face.

It just goes on and on, piling one plot device on another, never seeming to care if they make sense or work together. Poor Bernard needed the help of a more experienced writer and director to make this film. Sadly he didn't get the help he needed. It was good at making us laugh and it's short. I wouldn't need to see it again so I'm not going to buy the new Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray.

Friday Night Movies 846

Hercules And The Captive Women 1961 Screenplay by Vittorio Cottafavi, Sandro Continenza and Duccio Tessari, directed by Vittorio Cottafavi. Original title is Ercole alla conquista di Atlantide, in the UK it was released as Hercules Conquers Atlantis, it was also released as Hercules and The Haunted Women. It was released in the US in 1963. The film was made fun of on Mystery Science Theater 3000 in the 4th season. They have a nasty pan and scan version that I first saw in 1992, a few years later I picked up the Warriors Multi Movie set. Fifty sword and sandal action films, mostly from Italy. Today we watched the Blu-ray, wide screen and great looking. The Blu-ray also includes a copy of the MST3K episode.

Reg Park plays Hercules, the rest of the cast are unknown Italians to me. He's drugged by a friend, Androcles the King of Thebes, and taken on an adventure by ship. They wind up on an island where he saves a local princess and kills the god Proteus. The island turns out to be Atlantis and the princess turns out to be a sacrifice to the gods to protect their island. The princess is still on the chopping block unless Hercules can bust up enough stuff for them to go free.

It was a nice looking transfer but the movie is still below average to me. I don't think I'll bother with the Blu-ray, not for the number of times I might want to watch it again. I've already got a couple of copies of it on one or another of those Multi movie packs.

Ulysses 1954 Director Mario Camerini co-wrote the screenplay with Franco Brusati. Mario Bava is the cinematographer, he also directed the Polyphemus segment.

Kirk Douglas is Ulysses and he's been gone from Ithaca for ten years. He went off to fight Troy and failed to return after the battle was over. The palace is filled with suitors demanding the hand of his wife Penelope. Why she can't drive them out as Queen I don't know. We spend a lot of time with Penelope seeing what dicks the suitors are, they drink Ulysses wine and eat his food, all the while boasting who's the best suitor. Someone really needs to kick these guy's collective asses.

Princess Nausicaa finds a man washed up  on the shore of her island home of Phaeacia. We know it's Ulysses but he's lost his memory after escaping the clutches of Circe. He's welcomed by the king and given a room in the castle. Nausicaa falls for him but soon as he gets his memory back he knows he has to go home. He arrives on Ithaca just in time to fight for his wife in a contest. He kills all the suitors and he's reunited with his bride.

I thought it was better than the Hercules movie but I'm not sold on getting a copy. We watched the Blu-ray and it looked very nice.

Jirocho Fuji 1 1959 & 2 1960

Jirocho Fuji 1 1959 Written by Fuji Yahiro and directed by Kazuo Mori. Kazuo directed over 90 films between 1037 and 1976, he directed a bit of TV after that, finally retiring in 1980. He passed away 9 years later at the age of 78. He directed 10 episodes of the Zatoichi TV series from 1974 and three of the Zatoichi films with Shintarô Katsu. 

Jirocho Fuji is a Japanese action film about the legendary yakuza Shimizu Jirocho, the biggest Boss in Shimizu. There are dozen's of movies about him. He's played here by Kazuo Hasegawa, who started acting in 1927 and retired in 1968, he passed away in 1984 at the age of 76. I think the only other movies I've seen him in are Gate Of Hell and The Loyal 47 Ronin. It's hard to find copies of Japanese films before the 60s with subtitles.

This film takes place in the middle part of his life, he's a raising boss in the city of Shimizu. He's a much more level headed man than the other yakuza bosses and one less prone to cheat his customers and murder his fellow yakuza to gain an advantage. He'll fight when he has to and he wins. He's got to fight a couple of other bosses who want his territory.

Raizô Ichikawa plays a friend of his called Nikichi and Shintarô Katsu plays his one-eyed best pal Ishimatsu. Shintarô adds some humor to the movie as his character is a bit of drunk with a tendency to get into fights. Lucky for him he's a good fighter. The action scenes are fairly good, plenty of sword waving and people slashing.

The copy on YouTube isn't very good but it's watchable. There's a link in the title above. Same as the sequel below.

Jirocho Fuji 2 The Chivalrous 1960 Written by Fuji Yahiro and directed by Kazuo Mori.

More yakuza action between Jirocho and other rival yakuza gangs. Some of these guys are absolute scum. Nice to see them put down.

I was entertained by both films but wished the video quality was better.

Captain Scarlett 1952

Captain Scarlett 1952 Written by Howard Dimsdale, directed by Thomas H Carr. Though set in France the film was shot in Mexico with a mostly Mexican cast. It's a pretty average swashbuckler set just after the Napoleonic Wars. Richard Greene's been away from the family home for a while, he returns to find his land has been confiscated by a scumbag, Count Villiers. He sets about fixing that with the point of his sword. There's a fair bit of action, some horse riding and a bit of romance. I watched it on YouTube, I would watch it again but I wouldn't buy a DVD unless it was in a cheap multi pack.

Fort Algiers 1953

Fort Algiers 1953 Story by Frederick Stephani, screenplay by Theodore St John, directed by Lesley Selander.

Raymond Burr is a powerful Arab Sheik who's just lead his warriors against the French Foreign Legion. The Legionnaires fort was taken and all the legionnaires killed. Yvonne DeCarlo is a secret agent who comes to Algiers to spy on Raymond, her brother was in the FFL. Carlos Thompson was Yvonne's former flame. He's in the French Army and at one point goes under cover to spy on Raymond. The Shiek has gotten the other tribal leaders together for a big push on the French oil fields. There's a big battle at the end of the movie.

There's plenty of desert and horse riding, some of which was borrowed from Outpost In Morocco. Some footage was actually shot in Moroco and Fort Tinihir, most of the rest was a Hollywood studio and the desert around Vasquez Rocks. It's pretty dead average, a typical potboiler with some action, romance and a few laughs. I'd picked up the DVD on clearance and I'll keep it. I might want to watch it again someday. Then again.