PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

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.

Zoo Baby 1957

Zoo Baby 1957 Jan Read wrote the story and the screenplay, David Eady was the director. That kid is Gerard Lohan, he plays Pip, the son of a big game hunter. Dad decides Pip should go to school in the UK and he must leave his animals at home. Pip smuggles a monkey on board but it gets caught at the dock and quarantined for a month. Now he's sad and in London with no pet. He likes the Chessington Zoo and when the opportunity comes along he steals a coatimundi he thinks is being mistreated. The opposite is true, Pip is a bit of an idiotic zealot when it comes to animals. He smuggles the little critter into the house and there's a good bit of collateral damage before some brighter people figure out what's happened and fix it up. Sadly, Pip isn't punished enough for his misdeeds. Nice scenery around London and an about average story. Got the job done. I was mostly entertained but it's doubtful that I'll ever need to see it again.

Science Fiction Sunday 615

Mutator 1989 Lynn Rose Higgins and Gerald A Rose wrote the story, Lynn wrote the screenplay, it was directed by John R Bowey. The only actors I recognized were Brion James and Embeth Davidtz. I'm certainly a Brion fan.

It's pretty standard fare in the mutated monster genre but not that clever or well made. Brion goes to work as a security guard in the HQ of a large corporation. He meets the guys and learns that there had been a big escape in the summer, none of the mutated cats have been seen since. One of the guards believes they are still out there but the other two aren't believing him. The viewers had already seen what happened to the guy that Brion's replacing in the opening credits, a guard is stalked and slashed in the face by some unseen beast.

Since it's Brion's first day all hell breaks loose. Luckily the guard room has a big arsenal of guns. Brion's trapped in the building with 3 guards, the head of the company, and three animal rights activists who have broken in to release animals. One of the activists is the head honcho's daughter. It's all one from column A and two from column B here. I did have a laugh or two but that isn't enough to get it to above average. There's a copy on YouTube, link in title, but it's missing the opening credits segment that shows the guy that Brion replaces getting attacked. The copy I have from YouTube is a few months old and it's complete but it's also gone. Who would give two hoots about that movie to have it taken down?

The Rocket Man 1954 Story by George W George and George F Slavin, screenplay by Lenny Bruce and Jack Henley, directed by Oscar Rudolph.

Spring Byington is Justice Amelia Brown and Charles Coburn is Mayor Ed Johnson, they live in a the small town of Carlisle. George "Foghorn" Winslow plays an orphan boy called Timmy. When the movie opens he's with all the boys watching a special presentation by Captain Talray and the Outer Spacers. They're actors from a TV show, they put on a bit of a show, they've got a rocket prop with them, it smokes. At the end of the show they hand out toys to the kids. Timmy wants a ray guy but there were only two planes left. A spaceman materializes in a puff of smoke and no one notices. All of  sudden there's a ray gun in the empty box.

Timmy goes off with his ray gun and saves a boys life by halting a speeding car before it runs over a kid who's fallen in the road. Driving the car is Emory Parnell, he's Big Bill Watkins, a crooked politician from the area. Amelia tosses him into jail for ten days. For some reason he wants the orphanage that Timmy lives in. He gets one of his lawyers, John Agar, to put in a bid for him. John meets the lovely June Brown, played by Anne Francis, and falls like a ton of bricks. He turns against Big Bill.

With the help of the magical ray gun, most everything goes against Big Bill and that made me laugh a few times. It's a bit corny, hokey and a bit old fashion but it's was entertaining and I liked all the characters. I happy to see it and would recommend it to most anyone. There's a so-so copy on YouTube in 3 parts. The version I downloaded was all one file but it seems it's not there anymore. The 3 part copy has been up for 2 years, go figure. Part one, two, three.

I Married A Woman 1958

I Married A Woman 1958 Written by Goodman Ace and directed by Hal Kanter. The first of the RKO films that Diana Dors worked on, she would do one other, The Unholy Wife, and the company would fold before the third in her contract could be made. It was filmed in 1956 but not released until 1958.

George Gobel plays an ad exec who's boss is played by Adolphe Menjou, Diana Dors plays his wife and Jessie Royce Landis plays Diana's live in mother. Adolphe has bad news for George, he's got to redo the new campaign for Luxemberg beer or they lose the account. George has until Monday, it's Friday now. Diana was Miss Luxemberg a few years earlier, that's where George met her.

Diana has just discovered she's pregnant but she's a bit of a nutcase and doesn't tell George right away. Mom is a busy body and a pain in the ass. It's a good reminder not to have a mom come live with a recently married couple. Where are those ice flows when you need them?

George eventually comes up with the idea of having a Mrs Luxemberg contest with all the now married Miss Luxembergs. They launch the contest without checking on the women who were Miss Luxemberg in the past and they are a sorry lot. Diana is the only one of them who still looks good and she's not happy with George because she feels neglected. She's really self-absorbed and doesn't really pay attention to George's feeble muttering about work. Diana's mother and George's co-worker help poison the well of family bliss.

It all works out well enough by the end of the movie but it's a hard slog to get there. The characters aren't too likeable and there just aren't enough good jokes to make my endorphins happy. The public of the day thought so too, the movie did poorly and pretty much ended George's movie career. It was his second feature film, the first, The Birds And The Bees, did poorly too.

George worked in TV for decades after that but didn't appear in a theatrical film until the The Day It Came To Earth in 1977, that was followed by the 1978 film Rabbit Test with Joan Rivers and Ellie in 1984. I know I've seen the first two but don't remember him in those parts. George died in 1991 at age 71.

I always thought George was entertaining on TV but I sure was disappointed with this one. Luckily I didn't spend money on a DVD, there isn't a legit release but you can find it on a bootleg or two. I saw it on YouTube a couple of weeks ago and it disappeared right away. 

British Cinema Collection Volume 2

 

Our Girl Friday 1953 Re-titled The Adventures Of Sadie in the US. Based on the 1932 novel The Cautious Amorist by Norman Lindsay, screenplay and direction by Noel Langley. The book was banned in Australia from 1933 to 1953 for indecency and blasphemy. Lindsay is Australian and he also wrote The Age Of Consent. I've not read any of his books. All five films are in the British Cinema Collection Volume 2.

 

Joan Collins gets shipwrecked on a desert island with George Cole, Kenneth More and Robertson Hare. There's plenty of comical sexual tension between the men but not enough jokes. Joan runs around in a bikini for much of the movie. Nothing much else happens.

It's about average and watchable enough. I turned the speed up a bit once it had been on a short while. It kind of drags it's ass around the beach at too leisurely a pace for me.

Dentist In The Chair 1960 Based on Matthew Finch's book of the same name, screenplay by Val Guest, additional scenes by Bob Monkhouse and George Wadmore, direction by Don Caffey.

Kenneth Conner plays a thief, he breaks into a store only to find he's nicked some dental gear. Don't ask how that happened, Kenneth is embarrassed enough as it is. His girlfriend is nagging him to get rid of the swag so he heads over to the dental school to unload the stuff on the students. Bob Monkhouse and Ronnie Stevens play the two students who help him flog the stuff. The arrival of the police puts the wind up their bottoms and panic ensures. They try to get the sold items back so they can be returned and things start to go as wrong as you'd expect. Still, it mostly works out well enough at the end.

Peggy Cummins plays the pretty dental student and romantic interest, Eric Barker plays the Dean, the rest of the cast were unknown to me. They all did a good job but the script is kind of predictable. It's trying to make it self like the Doctor film series or a Carry On film but it's not quite there. I got through it and I'd still watch it again someday.

The Runaway Bus! 1954 Written, produced and directed by Val Guest. Val had a long career starting in 1943 with the Arthur Askey film Miss London Ltd. He directed 14 films for Hammer Studios including  The Men Of Sherwood Forest, The Quatermass Xperiment, Quatermass 2 and The Abominable Snowman. That is one ugly poster above. In later posters Frankie would get top billing over Margaret.

Heavy fog is hindering the planes leaving the terminal but several passengers are clamoring for a ride to another less fogbound air terminal. Frankie Howard is the driver of the emergency relief bus. Petula Clark is a stewardess assigned to herding the passengers and Terence Alexander is a pilot along for the ride.

Margaret Rutherford is a pushy passenger and most annoying. Frankie has a tough time finding the road, let alone finding their way to Blackbushe Terminal. He gets a bigger surprise when he finds out that someone has stowed stolen gold on the bus and they're on the bus. Who could it be? You can find out by clicking the link in the title and watching the movie on YouTube.

I've seen this a couple of times and I've enjoyed it each time I've seen it. There's some entertaining twists and turns, some fun gags and plenty of Frankie. He's certainly a favorite of mine, from way back when I was a kid watching him on TV.

Carry On Admiral 1957 Based on a stage play called Off The Record by Ian Hay and Stephen King-Hall, Val Guest wrote the screenplay and directed. It's called The Ship Was Loaded in the US. Not a Carry On film despite the title. They would start the Carry On series the following year with Carry On Sergeant.

David Tomlinson and Brian Reese are pals, David is the private secretary with the Admiralty and Brian is to headed to sea as the Captain of his first command. They get drunk the night before Brian ships out. During the evening they switch rooms and in the morning they are too hung over to understand the drivers who have come to take them to their jobs. Ronald Shiner plays Salty, a skipper of a small craft, and Peggy Cummins plays the romantic interest.

David wakes up at sea and to save his career he pretends to be Brian. It's a wonder that the ship survived. Brian works to get back to his ship but is faced with several obstacles. It's a slim excuse that no one would believe but it has some fun jokes and silly stuff going on so I laughed instead of thinking too much about it. I'd watch it again sometime.

Time Of His Life 1955 Leslie Hiscott is the director and screenplay writer, he wrote the original story with Brock Williams. Leslie directed 69 films in his career, this is his second last. I can't say any are familiar except the 1937 film The Triumph Of Sherlock Holmes.

Richard Hearne is a prisoner who is getting released, he's reluctant to leave the place after so many happy but it's the law and he's got to go. Ellen Pollock [lays his daughter, he's all posh and the head of a society for the rehabilitation of ex-convicts. When daddy shows up she's really unhappy but decides to hid him in the attic while she has a function for the society.

Ellen plays to ship him off to Australia but things don't go as panned. Richard helps Ellen's children work though some stuff and they help turn their mother's head around. The film ends on an even happier note when Richard gets his wish to return to the slammer.  It made me laugh out loud a couple of times. Hearne is pretty good at the physical comedy and the verbal jokes aren't too bad either.

Rocket's Galore 1958

Rocket's Galore 1958 Based on a Compton MacKenzie novel, screenplay by Monja Danischewsky, direction by Michael Relph. It was called Mad Little Island in the US.

The government has decided that the next likely location for a missile base is the island of Todday in the Hebrides. They send Donald Sinden along to negotiate with the locals. They aren't too keen on the idea of losing their homes and a revolution starts. There's a good bit of collateral damage going on.

Jeannie Carson is a local woman whom Donald takes a liking to but his job gets in the way of their romance. A test missile from a nearby land location crashes on the island and the military scientists are stopped from retrieving it when the locals claim it's on private property. It's burned on the site but that doesn't seem to be the end of the plan to build the site.

The local priest comes up with an plan and the island is saved. It's pretty silly stuff but most of the jokes work well enough for me to have a laugh or two. Roland Culver takes over the part of Captain Waggett as Basil Radford past away 3 years after the first movie was made. A few of the actors from the first movie are back but some play different parts. Ronnie Corbett has a small part and John Laurie is there briefly.

Some compare it to Bill Forsyth's 1983 movie Local Hero and it does share a few similarities. There's someone wanting their land and there's an Eco-friendly ending. The big different is the people of Todday want to stay in their homes, the people in Ferness have dollar signs in their eyes and they can't wait to be rich. Rocket's Galore ends on a happier note but Local Hero is much funnier. You can watch Rocket's Galore on YouTube.

The Galloping Major 1951

The Galloping Major 1951 Based on an idea by Basil Radford, screenplay by Monja Danischewsky and Henry Cornelius, directed by Henry Cornelius.

Basil Radford plays a retired Major who's running a pet shop in Lamb's Green, London. He gets involved with a syndicate to buy a race horse. He's hoping they'll make some money and he'll be able to pay off the debt he owes.

They buy the wrong horse and everyone's mad. They find he's a bit of jumper so they enter him in the Grand National steeplechase. All sorts of problems crop up along the way and it's touch and go for the syndicate.

There's a great cast, many of which are old favorites: Kenneth More, Jimmy Hanley, Janette Scott, Hugh Griffith, Charles Hawtrey, Alfie Bass, Sidney James, Thora Hird and Leslie Phillips.

I found it fun and there were a good number of laughs. There's usually something going on and it's filled with plenty of characters. I'd certainly want to watch it again sometime. You can check it out on YouTube.

Disney Dogs Collection Volume 1

Disney Dogs Collection Volume 1 collects 4 previously released DVDs of dog related films and puts them in a cheap 4 pack. I got Dogs V1 and 4 other four movie collections in 2018 and they were $7.49 each. A quick visit to Amazon for the set's cover tells me that Dogs V1 is currently $9.99, which is still a pretty good bargain, if you like these sorts of movies. I mostly got this for The Shaggy Dog. I'd seen it and The Ugly Dachshund back when they were relatively new. I was 6 when The Shaggy Dog came out so I'm guessing that I saw when it was aired on Walt Disney Presents 1958-1961 or Walt Disney's Wonderful World Of Color 1961-1969. I know I saw The Ugly Dachshund at the Bronx Park Community Center in Winnipeg sometime after it was in the theaters. In the 60s the center would play a kids movie every Saturday. It was a quarter to get in. They screened a lot of Disney movies in 16MM and it was well attended. I would go every Saturday. At some point the guy running the thing started asking me to run across to the Safeway and get him some quarters. He would let me in for free.

The Shaggy Dog 1959 Based on the novel The Hound Of Florence by Felix Salten. He was the same guy that wrote the novel Bambi. Bill Walsh and Lillie Hayward wrote the screenplay and Charles Barton directed. Bill wrote a lot of Disney films and TV shows, including The Absent Minded Professor, Mary Poppins, That Darn Cat!, Blackbeard's Ghost, The Love Bug and Bedknobs And Broomsticks. I've seen all of those and really enjoyed them as a kid. Most of them are still fairly entertaining but I have a deeply rooted streak of nostalgia when it comes to Disney.

Lillie wrote a large number of films and TV episodes in a career that started in 1924 with Janice Meredith and ended with Smoky in 1966. I didn't recognize much in her early work but I've seen the 1936 film The Walking Dead with Boris Karloff, in 1943 she wrote My Friend Flicka and Black Beauty in 1946, Tarzan And the Lost Safari in 1957. After that she penned The New Adventures Of Spin And Marty, the Annette TV series, plus several other Disney programs and films.

In the commentary with Tommy Kirk and Tim Considine they both are very complementary to director Charles Barton. His career started in 1934 with Wagon Wheels, a Randolph Scott movie I've seen and enjoyed. After that I don't think I'd seen any of his films until the 1940s, when he started directing films for Abbott and Costello. I know I've seen all of those. In the 1950s he moved into TV directing episodes of shows like Amos And Andy, The Great Gildersleeve and Disney's Zorro. He kept directing TV until 1971 when he retired.

Fred McMurray and Jean Hagen are the mom and dad to Tommy Kirk and Kevin Corcoran. Tim Considine is Tommy's pal and Annette Funicello is the gal that Tim and Tommy are both interested in. Cecil Kellaway is a professor at a museum and he's the source of the Borgia ring that turns people into dogs. Tim's natural clumsiness acquires the ring and reading the writing on the ring turns Tim into the big sheepdog in the house next door. For some reason the ring doesn't turn people into their own dog but merges their body with a nearby dog.

The new neighbor with the dog is played by Alexander Scourby, he's a scientist who's also a spy. He plans to steal some plans from a local military site. Tim and the gang of kids help put a stop to that.

There's plenty of silly stuff and slapstick. Good cast with Alexander Scourby, Roberta Shore, James Westerfield, Strother Martin and Paul Frees. I'd last seen this in 2009 and wound up enjoying it again.

The Shaggy DA 1978 Based on the same novel by Felix Salten, screenplay by Don Tait and direction by Robert Stevenson.

The sequel has Tommy Kirk all grown up, now he's played by Dean Jones. Dean's married to Suzanne Pleshette and they have a little boy. Keenan Wynne is the town's District Attorney and the bad guy. He played that role in several previous Disney movies.

Tim Conway is the comic relief machine, he has the dog that Dean turns into, an ice cream truck with more than 39 flavors, and Jo Anne Worley as his girlfriend. She's in the roller derby. Some criminals are working the city pretty hard and Keenan is doing next to nothing. In fact, he's getting a cut from local fence Vic Tayback. Dick Van Patten is Keenan's henchman. Luckily they are all bunglers.

After his house is cleaned out Dean decides to run for DA and clean up the town. The crooks steal the ring and it starts working it's mojo while Dean is trying to get his campaign on. The sequel isn't as charming as the first movie, but it's still OK. I was still entertained and would watch the pair of them again.

The Ugly Dachshund 1966 Adapted from the novel of the same name by GB Stern, screenplay is by Albert Alley, direction by Norman Tokar. Albert wrote a whole lot of 60s and 70s TV, shows like Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, The Rifleman, Have Gun - Will Travel, Laramie, Rawhide, and The Magical World Of Disney. Norman started directing in TV with shows like The Bob Cummings Show, Leave It To Beaver and The Donna Reed Show. He started directing feature films for Disney with Big Red in 1963 and went on to direct over a dozen films for them. He directed 31 episodes of The Magical World Of Disney.

Dean Jones is an artist and Suzanne Pleshette is his wife, she's a stay at home wife and is totally fixated on her Dachshund. The dog they have is pregnant and  vet Charlie Ruggles delivers the trio of pups. Dean takes a liking to the runt of the litter of the Great Dane that Charles has. It's been rejected by the mother who has too many pups for he milk supply so Dean sneaks it into the house claiming it was later delivery. Susanne figures it out after a couple of weeks and reluctantly lets Dean keep the dog he's named Brutus.

The Dachshund's are naughty and Brutus often gets unfairly blamed. He's no angel, his large size and playful attitude brings about a lot of destruction. It's all very slapsticky and destructive but there isn't much story other than the day to day at the house. Eventually Brutus saves one of the Dachshunds and he's now Suzanne's pal too. It's not quite as entertaining as the other two and I might skip when I watch the set again.

The Shaggy Dog 2006 Five people wrote the script and Brian Robbins directed. Brian directed Good Burger back in 1997 and I enjoyed that movie more than this one. I liked Ready To Rumble with David Arquette but not so much Norbit. He's produced a lot of TV and films.

I'm no fan of Tim Allen and he made me less interested in this movie all the way through. He's the assistant DA to Danny Glover and Kristin Davis is his wife. Robert Downey Jr has a dog stolen from a Chinese monastery, the dog has been alive for 80 years and he wants to know why. He's been experimenting on a long life serum with his Partner Phillip Michael Hall and they are using animals.

A local teacher is being tried for trying to free the animals and setting fire to the lab. Tim is working the case and his daughter is mad at him for taking the case. Tim gets bitten by the 80 year old dog and he starts turning into a dog but unlike the other films he doesn't merge with the existing dog. The two dogs are mistaken for each other throughout the film. Eventually things get sorted out and the villains are revealed.

There's plenty of slapstick and some jokes but I didn't find it more than about average. I'd probably skip it when I watch the first two movies.

A Lady Mislaid 1958

A Lady Mislaid 1958 A fun comedy based on a play, of the same name, by Kenneth Horne, the screenplay is by Frederick Gotfurt, the director is David MacDonald. I'd recently seen MacDonald's previous film, Small Hotel, and enjoyed that. I can't say anything else looks familiar on his IMDb listing.

Phyllis Calvert plays the sister of a writer who takes a cottage to get out of the  stressful city. Gillian Owen plays the writer who needs a bit of peace and quiet. Just after they get settled the police visit, there have been allegations that the man who sold them the house had murdered his wife. The police want to dig up the patio and other possible spots that might harbor a body. 

Thorley Walters plays Mr Smith, the man suspected of killing his wife. He shows up at the house and Phyllis befriends him. His story is that his wife went to Switzerland but he tells Phyllis he lied for his pride, his wife really left him for another man. Alan White is the detective on the case. The characters run in and out of the cottage as the dig progresses. More back story is revealed. It moves along quite nicely, there are enough twists and turns to keep me interested. It's just under an hour so there's little time to waste. I got a few laughs out of it and would be happy to watch it again.

I put a link for the film in the title above. It won't be posted until August 24, 2020. The YouTube channel I found it at last week is taking it down in a few days. While it's up you can watch or download it here. That guy's YouTube Channel has had a lot of good films but he posts films for a brief time to try to avoid getting any take down notices. Too many take down notices leads the dreaded red bar of doom and your channel gets deleted. Other YouTubers will reloaded his films on their page, this is what I suspect is happening here. I intend to download a copy from the title link when it premieres to see if it's the same copy as was posted by the other channel. You can find a DVD at the bootleg sites.