PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Crowded Day 1954

The Crowded Day 1954 Based on a story by John Paddy Carstairs and Moie Charles, screenplay by Talbot Rothwell, directed by John Guillermin. Released in the US under the ghastly title of Shop Soiled. A comedy with a serious side.

 

Joan Rice plays a shop girl at Bunting and Hobbs, a large multi floor department store in London. Joan is dating a co-worker played by John Gregson. She's not happy with him, when the movie opens he's failed to show up for their date, his excuse is he had to go to a meeting of his vintage car club. She breaks their engagement and they spend the rest of the movie getting back together.

On a more serious note, Josephine Griffin plays another store employee with relationship problems. She's desperately trying to find her fiance. He left his mother's house two months ago for a job and Josephine hasn't heard from him since. The mother hates Josephine and won't tell her where her son has gone. The personal manager finds out that she's pregnant and gives her two week notice. Josephine steals some strychnine tablets and leaves the store. She spends the rest of the movie deciding what to do. Josephine's scenes contrast with the more carefree scenes of her co-workers. The movie ends on a high note for her.

The other characters have small story arcs that fill in the spaces around the two main story lines. It's more of a drama that I care for but I enjoyed it. There's a good script, a director I like, and some good actors in the cast: Freda Jackson, Patricia Marmont, George Woodbridge, Sonia Holm, Rachel Roberts, Vera Day, Thora Hird, Arthur Hill, Prunella Scales, Sydney Tafler, Edward Chapman, Richard Wattis and Sidney James. You can check out a nice copy on YouTube.

Child's Play 1954

Child's Play 1954 Written by Don Sharp, Peter Blackmore and Margaret Thomson, directed by Margaret Thomson. Don was also second unit director on the film. He had a fairly decent run as a director starting in 1955, his last film came out in 1989. He worked for Hammer films directing The Kiss Of The Vampire in 1963 and on their TV production Hammer House Of Horror in 1980. He directed The Face Of Fu Manchu and The Brides Of Fu Manchu for Harry Alan Towers. Margaret only had a few entries on the IMDb and I couldn't say any were familiar.

 

In a quiet little English village some kids make a bomb and blow up their club house.

 

The inclusion of a piece of lava from Krakatoa creates an atomic explosion.

 

The only casualty is a doll.

 

The local constabulary is disturbed and sets out to find what's going on. The kids move their experiment to an old quarry where they set out to make a product using their new machine and the Krakatoa lava. The new product is popcorn, branded Bangcorn, which they sell through the local sweet shop.

 

That's the popcorn making machine. The nice lady in the candy shop is Mona Washbourne, she's playing Miss Emily Goslett. The man in the picture is Ballard Berkeley. Some might remember him from Fawlty Towers where he played the major.

Peter Sallis plays the local van driver who sells Miss Goslett's candy apples on his route around the villages. The young girl in the picture on the right is Anneke Wills, some might remember her from all sorts of British TV including Doctor Who. Bangcorn proves popular and they can hardly keep up with the demand. Eventually the secret gets out but by then the last of the Krakatoa rock is used up. The village turns back to normal again.

It's a good story with fun kids and atomic powered popcorn. There's plenty of noise and a few explosions. What's not to like. I picked it up on a whim at the MVD clearance sale for a couple of bucks. Well spent.

Miss Tulip Stays The Night 1955

Miss Tulip Stays The Night 1955 Based on the radio play by Nan Marriott-Watson, screenplay by John O Douglas with uncredited help from Jack Hulbert and Bill Luckwell, directed by Leslie Arliss.

Patrick Holt and Diana Dors are Andrew and Katie Dax. Andrew's a mystery writer and Katie has rented a cottage in the country to give him a break from the distractions of London life so he can finish his new book.

 

The first night they're settling into the cottage when an annoying woman called Miss Tulip comes along with a story about threatening letters and someone coming to kill her. She bullies the couple into letting her stay the night. Next morning, there's Miss Tulip, shot through the head, in a chair, in the sitting room.

The local constable shows up to inquire about Miss Tulip's car abandoned in the middle of the lane. He calls Inspector Thorne and right away poor Andrew is a suspect. Now he's got to use his detecting abilities to keep ahead of the Inspector. Diana gives him a hand and things get wrapped up in a silly way.

I thought it was entertaining while still being about average for a crime comedy. There are a few gags and Diana is charming. The story moves along quick enough that it makes the 68 min breeze by. I picked up the DVD for a couple of bucks at MVDs recent clearance sale. Worth the price for sure. You can see a nice 1080p copy on YouTube for nothing. Link above.

Further Up The Creek 1958

Further Up The Creek 1958 Written by Val Guest, Len Heath and John Warren, directed by Val Guest.

David Tomlinson is back as Lieutenant Fairweather. This time he's assigned to deliver the HMS Aristotle to a fake Middle Eastern country in the Mediterranean. Frankie Howerd is the Bosun and he's got a scheme to make some cash. He's going to sell tickets to civilians and take them on a cheap one way trip to that made up country. He gets his passengers but has to work a daft scheme to keep Fairweather from finding out what's going on.

That doesn't work out so well and there's plenty of gags and yelling going on. It made me laugh. It's one of the few Frankie Howerd films I hadn't seen yet. He an old favorite of mine. You can check it out on YouTube.

Up The Creek 1958

Up The Creek 1958 Written and directed by Val Guest.

David Tomlinson is Lieutenant Fairweather in the Royal Navy. He's a bit of an accident prone guy, everywhere he goes he causes problems and collateral damage. Peter Sellers is Chief Petty Officer Doherty of the HMS Berkeley, a ship that's been mothballed and manned by a small crew. It's posted near a small town and the sailors have been using the ship to make money by selling goods and services to the locals.

Fairweather gets posted to the Berkeley and Doherty tries to keep his from finding out about his businesses. Fairweather has his mind on one thing, his rocket experiments, but he eventually finds out and comes down hard on the men. Doherty blackmails him into letting them go on with their work but it all falls apart when the Admiral makes a surprise inspection.

There's plenty of running about and some gags. I enjoyed it and would watch it again someday.

The Good Humor Man 1950

The Good Humor Man 1950 Based on Appointment With Fear by Roy Huggins, screenplay by Frank Tashlin, directed by Lloyd Bacon. Frank had a varied career, he's been an animator, cartoonist, children's writer, illustrator, screenwriter and film director. He worked on a lot of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes for Warner Brothers. He also wrote and directed some entertaining live action films for The Three Stooges, Red Skeleton and Jerry Lewis. You can read more about Frank on the Wikipedia.

During the day Jack Carson is a Good Humor Man. He drives around in the iconic Good Humor Truck of the time and sells ice cream to kids and adults. After work Jack drops in to the local Captain Marvel Fan Club. He's the club's biggest member. The local club has their own club house.

Nice, huh. We had an old unused garage in our back yard that served as a gathering place for the local kids. We weren't a club but we had a good time on occasion. It would have been nice to have solved some crimes but we never did.

Jack gets involved in a crime. The lady with the red hat is Lola Albright, she's Jack's girlfriend. George Reeves plays her boss, he's a private eye. The lady with the gun is Jean Wallace. Jack meets her when she's being chased by some baddies. She asks him to stay over in her house for protection. In the morning he finds her dead, while he's getting the police her body disappears.

Jack spends the rest of the show in or out of trouble or falling down on his ass. The comedy relies heavily on slapstick. It's kind of fun but making Jack a clumsy dummy so much of the time got annoying at times. I'd get really tired of his antics if I had to experience them in every day real life. There's plenty of running about and shouting. Despite Jack chewing his way through the sets I enjoyed the movie. I watched it on YouTube.

The Card 1952

The Card 1952 Based on the novel of the same name by Arnold Bennett, screenplay by Eric Ambler, directed by Ronald Neame.

The movie follows along as Alec Guinness ambitiously climbs the social ladder. He takes advantage of his situation to better himself with odd schemes. He makes a name for himself when he adds his name to the guest list for a ball put on by the local countess. He gets sacked but that opens a door for him to take over managing a woman's rental properties. That success leads to other customers and other schemes. Soon he's a councilman. Alex provides good value for the town and he's quite the popular character. Could he be mayor?

Glynis Johns and Petula Clark are the romantic leads' Glynis proves to be trouble, Alex's income can't afford her, they part ways and that opens the door for Petula. All in all a fun thing. Glad to have seen it. I'd watch it again sometime.

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.

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.

The Constant Husband 1951

The Constant Husband 1951 Written by Sidney Gilliat and Val Valentine, directed by Sidney Gilliat, produced by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat. I'm a big Launder and Gilliat fan, especially of Green For Danger and the St Trinian's series, most of what they created was perfectly entertaining. This disc is part of Network's The British Film series.

Rex Harrison wakes up in a hotel in Wales with amnesia. The local hospital brings in a psychologist, played by Cecil Parker. They set off for London with the barest of clues, they find a wife, then 6 more. Harrison is taken to court and defended by Margaret Leighton. All the wives still want him back but he'd rather go to prison for a bit to clear his head. All the wives are waiting at his release but he goes off with his barrister.

There's a silly but entertaining story with plenty of fun characters. There's a nice passel of actors: Kay Kendall, Nicole Maurey, Valerie French, Robert Coote, Raymond Huntley, Eric Pohlmann, Sam Kydd, Muriel Young, Michael Ripper, Charles Lloyd-Pack, Micheal Hordern, George Cole, Marie Burke and several I didn't recall knowing. I got a few laughs from them all and was glad to have picked up the disc.