PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Tamahine 1963

Tamahine is a 1963 film starring Nancy Kwan as a Polynesian girl who winds up in England. It's based on a novel of the same name by Thelma Niklaus, the screenplay is by Denis Cannan, the director is Philip Leacock. I can't say I even recognize most of Stephen's films but I did receive a copy of Appointment In London recently. Hope it's entertaining. I've seen another film that Denis wrote, Why Bother To Knock, and it was OK. He also wrote A Boy Ten Feet Tall, The Amourous Adventure Of Moll Flanders, and A High Wind In Jamaica.

Nancy's father dies and she's sent to live with her father's cousin. Dennis Price plays the cousin, he's headmaster of a posh boys school. Her free ways cause some good bit of trouble. Nancy has a tendency to drop much or all of her clothes at the wrong time. There's romance and some gags. John Fraser is Nancy's romantic interest. There's romance between Art teacher Derek Nimmo and Dennis's sister Justine Lord. I see Derek in the odd film but I'm more familiar with Justine's work from The Saint. She appeared in 7 episodes over 5 years as 6 different characters. She's in an episode each of The Avengers, Man In A Suitcase and The Prisoner. She's in plenty of other TV shows and films, much of which I haven't seen. All the bits and pieces come together with a silly happy ending. I enjoyed it, I got a few laughs, I'd watch it again.

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The 2004 Hallmark mini-series Frankenstein was pretty faithful to the Mary Shelley novel and it reminds me once again what an ass that Frankenstein was. Surely not the sort of person that you'd like to get to know. Alec Newman plays Viktor Frankenstein, some might remember him from the Dune mini-series of a few years ago. It's directed by Kevin Connor and the screenplay is by Mark Kruger. They follow the novel quite well, much more so than most of the other adaptations, and it's a sad ass story. One bad thing after another happens to Frankenstein, fueled by his fear of death. It looks good and there's lot of nice locations and sets. William Hurt plays Viktor's professor and William Hurt plays the ship captain that Viktor tells his story to and Luke Goss plays The Creature.

This is the place Viktor lives in. I liked the wedge coming out of the front of the building. It's a fairly long production, 204 minutes, in two parts. I was happy enough to see it but wouldn't rush to see it anytime soon.

The Huggetts Abroad 1949

The Huggetts Abroad is the four film with the Huggett family and it came out in 1949. Ken Annakin directs, Keith Campbell wrote the story, Gerard Bryant and Ted Willis wrote the screenplay.

Jack Warner and Kathleen Harrison are dad and mom, Dinah Sheridan, Susan Shaw and Petula Clark are the three daughters. One of the daughter's wants to move to South Africa with her new nubby but they miss the ship. The family buys a truck and pack everyone off to South Africa.

It's not quite as entertaining as the first three films but I managed to enjoy it well enough. The film didn't do as well as the others at the box office and that was the end of the series. Now the DVDs can be put away until I get around to them again. All in all I'd recommend the series especially for the film film Holiday Camp.

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The 2011 horror film Creature is another DVD I picked up from Hamilton Book. Luckily it turned out better than the Bigfoot Wars movie I watched the other day. Not much better, it's still below average. It's written by Fred Andrews and Tracy Morse with Fred directing. The only person I knew in the cast was Sid Haig but Joe tells me that Mehcad Brooks is James Olsen in the Supergirl series. I don't watch that series, not because I wouldn't, I have no TV service and the only streaming I get is Amazon Prime. I might see it someday.

Creature has a group of young twenty somethings lured into the bayou's of Louisiana so they can be offered up to the alligator man-god by some inbred redneck scum. Sid's part of the redneck crowd and like usual he's fun to watch. Sad he died just recently.

There's nothing much new but it managed to keep my attention through the film. It won't be near the top of my pile of movies to re-watch sometime but I might get back to it someday.

I can't say the same for Silent Hill, I got hella bored in the middle and I wasn't too keen once I got to the end, it's not going on my DVD Wishlist. It's a 2006 horror movie based on the Silent Hill game. It's directed by Christophe Gans who directed the much more interesting Brotherhood Of The Wolf. Watch that movie instead. Be sure to get the director's cut. There's a nice Korean all region Blu-ray available with that version of the film. Looks nice.

Bigfoot Wars 2014

I watched Bigfoot Wars tonight. Not so good. C Thomas Howell battles Bigfoot and loses. A tribe of the human eating monsters sets up a camp in the woods near town. The hairy bastards kill people and eat them. They seem to prefer young women. The beasts grab the sheriff's daughter and C Thomas joins him and a deputy to look for her. There's plenty of traipsing through the woods and lots of yelling. There's a fair bit of gore and a brief bare bum at the start. The dialog is strictly get the job done quality. The actors a mixed bag, at least the ladies can get a scream up. I feel I wasted my $3.95 plus shipping and tax. I got the DVD at Hamilton Book. They have quite a number of DVDs and always get a few hundred new each month. They get some absolute shit sometimes. I buy it, now I have it, and sadly I'll do it again.

A Christmas Carol 1951

I watched the 1951 A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim today. I think I have seen it before but I can't remember seeing it in many many years. Noel Langley adapted Charles Dickens story and Brian Desmond Hurst directed.

Alastair as the jovial Scrooge from the end of the movie. His journey to get there is entertaining enough. Alastair is joined by a few actors I knew: Kathleen Harrison, Mervyn Johns, Michael Horden, George Cole, Miles Malleson, Hattie Jacques and Patrick Macnee.

It's a good well made film. I watched a copy from YouTube and it was pretty shitty looking. It would be nice to have a nice copy. There's a VCI Blu-ray on my Wishlist.

Michael Shayne - The Complete PRC Mystery Collection

Classic Flix from Lincoln California packed the 5 Michael Shayne films starring Hugh Beaumont in a one disc set called Michael Shayne - The Complete PRC Mystery Collection. They are all short, 60 to 68 minutes, and black and white, so they don't look that bad. I don't think Classic Flix spent a whole lot of restoring the films but they are all watchable.

There had been an earlier series of 7 Michael Shane movies, with Lloyd Nolan, for 20th Century-Fox. Four of them are available in a DVD set. I have that to watch sometime soon. I hope I can find the other three films. I need to look around on the internet I guess. After 20th dropped the series, Producers Releasing Corporation picked it up, they did 5 films with Hugh Beaumont. Brett Halliday wrote the novels, I've read 2 or 3 over the years but he wasn't a novelist I kept up with. The movies are loosely based on the novels or characters.

Murder Is My Business 1946 Screenplay Fred Myton, director Sam Newfield, producer Sigmund Neufeld. Sam and Sigmund were brothers. Sam is considered one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood. He started directing in 1926 and he has 277 credits on the IMDb, his career ended in 1964 when he passed away at age 64. His output is mostly low budget films, shot quickly for little money, but some are entertaining. A number of them turn up in those public domain multi film DVD packs. I've seen a bunch of his Westerns and can't complain, they're B pictures but totally watchable. Same with the Mike Shayne pictures.

Hugh plays Michael, Cheryl Walker plays his secretary and romantic interest Phyllis Hamilton, Lyle Talbot plays a brother, Ralph Dunn plays an annoyed cop and George Meeker plays a gigolo. Virginia Christine has a small part, she would later play Mrs Olson in the Folger's Coffee Ads.

Michael comes to the aid of a pal who's been accused of murdering a rich woman. Her family are pretty suspect and Mike works on them. Ralph Dunn is the annoyed police detective Pete Rafferty, he's sure he's going to pin something on that crooked PI someday.

Hugh's Shayne is a peanut eating laid back sort of guy who plays pretty loosely with the law. He's not ashamed to hold back some evidence or steal something from the scene of the murder. He gets the job done and in record time. It's a pretty casual film that was fun to watch. Onto the next.

Larceny in Her Heart 1946 Screenplay Raymond L Schrock, director Sam Newfield, producer Sigmund Neufeld. Sigmund produced 146 pictures and directed 12 shorts.

Mike gets hired by a man to find his missing daughter, he does, she's in an asylum. Mike goes undercover as a patient to find her. Cheryl Walker returns as Mike's secretary as does Ralph Dunn as Detective Rafferty. Paul Bryar joins Mike's gang as Tim Rourke, a reporter for the local paper. Nothing outstanding but still entertaining. It kept me interested and it's short so they don't waste any time.

Blonde for a Day 1946Screenplay Fred Myton, director Sam Newfield, producer Sigmund Neufeld.

Kathryn Adams plays Michael's secretary. In real life she was Hugh Beaumont's wife. They married in 1942 and she retired from acting. She returned for this one picture. They were married until 1974 when they divorced. Cy Kendall takes over the role of Detective Pet Rafferty, Paul Bryar returns as the news paper guy Tim Rourke.

Michael's moved to San Francisco for some unknown to us reason but he returns when reporter pal Tim is shot. He in the hospital, near death. A gambling syndicate is behind it all and Mike's got his hands full punching those guys. There's a fair bit of rough housing in the series and most of the fights are fair to good. Same with everything in the series really. Still they are watchable pot boilers that have a good sense of humor. That can stretch a budget pretty well, in the right hands. I enjoyed this one too.

Three on a Ticket 1947 Screenplay Fred Myton, director Sam Newfield, producer Sigmund Neufeld. Cheryl Walker is back as Hugh's secretary, same with Ralph Dunn and Paul Bryar.

A PI Hugh used to know drops dead in Hugh's office, Hugh skims 10 Gs and a small piece of cardboard off the dead guy. He beats it, leaving Cheryl to call the cops. A woman asks Hugh to bump off her husband. Crooks looking for that piece of cardboard come a knocking, they knock Hugh out. He's used to it and it doesn't stop him from solving the case. He's nice and he dumps the credit to his long suffering police pal Rafferty. Another one I enjoyed.

Too Many Winners 1947 Screenplay John Sutherland, director William Beaudine, producer John Sutherland. William has even more credits on the IMDb than Sam Newfield. William started directing in 1915 and he directed 147 shorts before moving to feature films in 1922. He made over 30 silent films, over 150 talkies, and over 200 episodes of TV. He's one of my heroes of film.

Hugh plays Michael for the last time, Trudy Marshall plays Hugh's secretary for the first and last time, Ralph Dunn plays Rafferty for the last time.

All Mike's trouble in failing to go on vacation stems from the local horse racing track. Some crook has figured out how to counterfeit the betting tickets and the track is paying out way too much money. They hire Mike to look into it. The crooks aren't happy and send someone over to talk to Mike. There's the usual punching and dead bodies but Mike manages to pull his fat out of the fire and solve the case before Rafferty. He still gives Rafferty the newspaper credit. It was about as much fun as the rest and in the end I was glad to have picked up a copy. I'll watch these over again.

Science Fiction Sunday 567

I watched Soylent Green today, then I watched it with the commentary by Richard Fleischer and Leigh Taylor-Young. I saw the picture in the theater when it came out in 1973 and thought it was great. I thought a horribly over-crowded future, with pollution and starvation working hand in hand to keep the population down, was something that easily could happen. It seems even more possible today. Richard Fleischer is the director and Stanley R Greenberg adapted Harry Harrison's novel Make Room! Make Room!. I read that novel back in the 70s and seem to remember it was pretty different. Fleischer touches on the differences in his commentary.

Charlton Heston is a cop in the corrupt future with the rich segregated from the masses in fancy towers overlooking the day to day squalor of the poor. Edward Robinson is a "book" who works with Charlton. Books do research and share knowledge with other books. There's not much by way of computer based infrastructure going on in their world of 2022.

Joseph Cotton is a rich guy, a man is sent to Joseph's apartment to kill him, Charlton is sent to investigate. Leigh-Taylor Young is the young woman who comes with the apartment Joseph lived in, she's there for his pleasure, these women are called "furniture". As Charlton digs into the death he suspects it's not a simple robbery. Eventually someone high up puts the kibosh on the investigation and Chuck Conners is sent to kill Charlton. In his escape Charlton winds up in the Soylent Green factory where he find out that SG is people.

I hadn't seen the movie in a number of years, I didn't even have a copy, I saw a cheap used copy of the DVD recently and thought I should see it again. I enjoyed it and I also enjoyed the commentary with Fleischer and Taylor-Young. I'll hopefully watch this again someday.

I watched Alien Arrival next, it's a 2016 SF movie that's also called Arrowhead. It's from Australia and it's written and directed by Jessie O'Brien. It's pretty low budget but it's looks fairly good. Mostly it's a guy in the desert with some decent CGI. Dan Mor is the guy and he's sent to an alien planet to retrieve some data that might save his father from execution. The ship has some issues and all crew get out in escape pods. Dan takes a shuttle from the ship and lands on the alien planet to find the dead body of the ship's security officer and the unopened escape pod of a young woman played by Aleisha Rose. They find the alien planet has some weird stuff going on. Dan is killed by a bug creature and a crystal revives him, it even grows his missing foot back. It gets more interesting and eventually Dan and the lady get off planet in a ship. It's a bit better than average. I wouldn't need to get a copy, I saw this on AP, and I doubt I would watch it again.

The 39 Steps 1978

The 39 Steps is a 1978 adaptation of the John Buchan novel. It's the 3rd adaptation of the film and Robert Powell plays Richard Hannay. There's a pretty good cast, including David Warner, Eric Porter, Karen Dotrice, John Mills, George Baker, Donald Pickering, Robert Flemyng, Timothy West and Andrew Keir. Michael Robson wrote the screenplay and Don Sharp directed.

The movie is set in 1914 and Richard Hannay is a mining engineer. He gets a visit from his neighbor Colonel Scudder, played by John Mills, who tells Hannay about some Prussian spies. Scudder is killed by those jerks, Hannay is blamed, and he goes on the run. Hannay gets some help from Karen Dotrice but it's touch and go as the enemy agents are hard on his train.

 

It's a fairly tight story with a nice quick pace. Good locations with plenty of nice scenery. One thing nice about the UK is there are so many nice old buildings around you can do a period drama up quite well. Same with the sets, props and costumes. I wasn't that familiar with Robert Powell, I can't say I've seen any of his work other than the 1969 movie The Italian Job. He did alright and I look forward to seeing him return to the character in the 1988 series Hannay.

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First up is the 1982 film Parasite, it's directed by Charles Band from a script by Alan J Adler, Michael Shoob and Frank Levering. It's a bit in the future, the cities have some sort of corrupt government, but there's not much going on out in the country. A scientist, contaminated by a parasite in the work place, runs off into the desert. He stops at a small town and infests several of the townies before most everyone is killed. An agent of the gov is on his trail but like most everyone in the film, he's incompetant and winds up blown to pieces in the desert. Cherie Currie, of The Runaways fame, plays one of the locals, she dies too.

Robert Glaudini plays the scientist, he survives, and so does Demi Moore in one of her early roles. Sadly, it's not that good. I was getting dulled to sleep about the half way mark, it did pick up a bit after that. The actors are all over the place, quality wise, and they don't have much interesting dialog. Things the characters do, often make little sense. Stan Winston was one of three credited for the special effects, I don't know what he did, but hardly any of it was inspired. I'm not going to be picking up a copy, I had already downloaded a copy off of YouTube. That'll do if I ever want to see what happened again. I doubt that will come up anytime soon.

36.15 code Père Noël is a French film from 1989. It was released in the US as Game Over. It's very much like a creepy death-filled Home Alone, except it's much better. It's not really a comedy but I was getting some laughs. The writer and director is René Manzor, this is his second film and he's still at it. He directed an episode of Highlander and a couple of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles that were set in France. The rest of his work is mostly unfamiliar to me.

It's about a ten year old boy who believes in Santa. A crazy guy is fired at the kid's mom's store for being a slapping Santa. The Santa learns of a late delivery to the mom's house and he sneaks aboard the truck. He kills the driver and the caretakers before breaking into the mom's mansion. She owns a big store in Paris and it's the last shopping before Christmas so she's at work until late. It's the poor kid and his feeble grandpa that have to survive until someone comes to help.

It's nicely dark and there's a nice sense of humor. The acting was fairly good, especially the kid and the grandfather. I'd consider getting a copy but the DVD is only from Germany and $25 on Amazon. I wound up with a copy, not that great looking, from YouTube. You can see it in the link above. You might enjoy it.