PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Bank Holiday 1938

Bank Holiday is a 1938 British comedy drama that's also known as Three On A Weekend. Oddly, it's not part of The British Film series but part of The Rank Collection. Rank DVDs have been turning up on Hamilton Books for the last several months, usually under 6 smackaroonies. That's often a bit cheaper than the British DVD and you don't need a special player to play the DVD. 

The original story is by Hans Wilhelm and Rodney Ackland, the scenario is by Rodney Ackland and Roger Burford, the director is Carol Reed. It's Carol's fifth credited feature, he followed it with Penny Paradise which I watched, and enjoyed, the middle of last year. In 1940 Carol would direct Night Train To Munich. I enjoyed that. I'm guessing Carol is better known for the 1949 film The Third Man, or the 1962 Mutiny On The Bounty. Most of his other films aren't ones I've seen, they have a tendency to be more dramas than crime films or comedies. I'd rather watch the later two genres.

Bank Holiday follows people as they travel to the seaside for vacation. There's a family, a nurse and her boyfriend taking a holiday in a hotel, and a couple of ladies looking for romance. There's ups and downs, most of the stories work out well in the end. It could use a few more gags, there's some heavy drama woven in there, but I got to the end credits OK. I'd even guess I'd watch it again.

Ghosts Of Rome 1961

Ghosts Of Rome is a 1961 Italian comedy known as Fantasmi a Roma in it's homeland. It's directed by Antonio Pietrangeli and he co-wrote the script with Sergio Amidei, Ennio Flaiano, Ruggero Maccari and Ettore Scola.

Marcello Mastroianni and Vittorio Gassman star in this ghost story about some ghosts trying to save their haunted house from being torn down for a department store. It's lighthearted with a bit of romance. I enjoyed it.

Science Fiction Sunday 571

Blue World Order is the first of a pair of foreign SF films from Amazon Prime, it came out in 2017 and it's yet another Post Apocalypse film. It came from Australia and it's got a bit of Mad Max in it. I say a bit, there's a dull car chase with the heroes in a tricked out Delorean. Jake Ryan is a guy who's immune to the mind control put on the remnants of society by villain Billy Zane. Jake's got a daughter, the last child alive, the rest were all killed when Billy sent out the first mind control blast. Billy and his scientists want that kid.

There's a whole bit of back story about how the bombs fell in the northern hemisphere, how the virus started, how Billy started the mind control project at the start of the movie. It's the kind of science and myth building that doesn't hold up to thinking about. There's plenty of running about in the woods, some fighting, and that sucky car chase. I sure wasn't impressed and wouldn't put it on my list to pick up on DVD. There might not even be a release, I just wasn't interested to go look. I did look on the IMDb where I saw this rating travesty.

I've hardly ever seen a rating score so loaded with bullshit voting. The top three rating categories have almost 2100 votes and the rest share just under 700 votes. I'm betting some of those 1's are retaliatory votes. I would give the movie a 3, mainly for the lack of originality, the so-so story and the poor dialog.

Anti Matter is a 2016 British SF film about an Oxford student who builds some sort of matter transporter. It's written and directed by Keir Burrows. It's is first feature, he has a second in pre-production. Ana is the Oxford student, she works with two others, Liv and Nate, she's dating Nate. They make a wormhole and are able to move stuff through it. They figure out how to control it and move stuff from the machine to somewhere else in the room. Ana decides to try it out. After the trip she's all weird and having mental problems. The others are kind of dickish in their treatment of Ana and she's kind of mental. It will be explained at the end of the film but getting there is a bit of a slog. I liked the film better after it was over, as opposed to watching poor Ana try to get info from her team. I liked the bare bones idea of the story but still wouldn't put it at more than average. I still wouldn't need to get a copy or see it again.

 

Friday Night Movies 771

Terrordactyl is a 2016 SF horror comedy about pterodactyls falling to Earth in meteors. Two hapless guys work as gardeners, they drink in a bar with a pretty waitress. The one guy has a crush on the waitress but can't get enough jam together to ask her out. A long haired vet drinks there too. They all get tossed into the middle of a flying invasion of space pterodactyls. The hapless guys turn out to have some guts, waitress has some brains and the vet has mucho guns and ammo. They battle their way around LA. The flying invaders look better than a lot of the CGI you see on the SyFy channel and the story is a fair bit better than most of their fare. Don Bitters III wrote the screenplay and co-directed with Geoff Reisner. Don has mostly been an effects guy for the last dozen years. This is his first film and so far the only one. He's currently directing episodes of Home Invasion. Not a title that makes me want to see the program. It's Geoff's first feature too, he's most a cinematographer, he's directing a new feature called F.E.A.R.

Return Of The Evil Fox is a 1991 Chines horror comedy written by Kong Mou and directed by Chuo-Chi Leung. An evil spirit is haunting a building and some religious types go after it. There's plenty of fighting, acrobatics, and flying about. There's some laughs as the movie pokes a bit of fun at the religious antics. It's about average for the time and place. I enjoyed the yelling and confusion and I'd watch it again someday.

The Night Won't Talk 1952

The Night Won't Talk is a 1952 British crime film from The British Film series. It's written by Roger Buford and Brick Williams, the director is Daniel Birt. The story is set in the world of the Chelsea art scene. A model is killed and Ballard Berkley is the police detective investigating. Some might remember Ballard from Fawlty Towers where he played the Colonel. He's got some suspects, is it the boyfriend she had a row with, the painter she poser for that afternoon, or the head of local painting club who's kind of a creep. Anything with models and naked flesh can attract the creeps. Hy Hazell plays the woman the boyfriend dated before he dated the murdered woman. There's a good bit of yakking, the movie is 61 minutes and there's not much wasted effort. I liked the locations and the sets. The actors were good and the story get me to the end. It's only about average for me but I'd watch it again someday.

Just My Luck 1957

Just My Luck is a 1957 Norman Wisdom movie that's part of a box set. Norman works in a jewelry shop, he has a thing for the window dresser in the shop across the street. He spends the whole movie trying to get enough money to buy her a nice necklace. He gets involved with swindlers who have a horse racing accumulator scheme. I still am not being won back to liking Norman and his mugging about. It's like Norman can't leave a scene without maximizing his flailing about and that sort of sucks all the life out of it for me. You'd think directed John Paddy Carstairs might have done a better job. Oh, well, not many to go in the set.

The Gang's All Here 1939

The Gang's All Here is the 1939 sequel to Smash And Grab. Ralph Spense wrote the screenplay and Thornton Freeland directed. It's got Jack Buchanan back as John Forrest, insurance investigator. He's just about to retire when a juicy case comes along to pull him back. His wife, now played by Googie Withers, gets right in there and helps with the investigation. Edward Everett Horton plays Jack's comical butler, he helps too. Edward has been a favorite of mine since I was a teenager. Otto Kruger and Jack La Rue are the villains. It's not quite as much fun as the first film but it was still entertaining. Glad to have picked them up. They'll get watched again.

Smash And Grab 1937

Smash And Grab is a 1937 British film that came out in the US as Larceny Street. Jack Buchanan wrote the scenario, Tim Whelan wrote the story and directed, Ralph Spence wrote the screenplay.

Jack plays John Forrest, an insurance investigator, Elsie Randolph plays his wife Alice. She's right in the thick of it, going undercover into the middle of the murdering robber's barbershop as a manicurist. The robber's MO is to break a jewelry store window and run off with the jewels. One of the robbers is a hard headed guy and he kills their cheating partner in crime. It's pretty much some lighthearted fun with a bit of detecting. It breezes along and I had a laugh or two. There's a sequel that's next to watch.

The Square Peg 1958

I bought this Norman Wisdom collection and found I didn't care much for Norman. I was hoping to breeze through the set but it's been sitting for ages unwatched. The Square Peg finds Norman working for the council outside an Army base. The movie was released in 1958 but the story is set in WW2. Norman causes so much trouble to the military top brass, they call him up into the Army. Now he's a complete wanker but in the Army. There's the usual mugging from Norman, he shakes and wiggles his body and face, he talks bollocks. Norman even gets mistaken for a rough tough German General and then has to pretend to be him. It's sadly not getting the laughs from me. So far the whole set has had little by way of yucks. Just a few more to go.

 

Science Fiction Sunday 570

Prometheus Trap is a 2012 low budget SF movie. It has an estimated budget of $560K on the IMDb. I believe it. It's written by Steven J Niles and directed by Andrew Bellware. Both have made more than a dozen pictures each, this is the first for me. A space ship is sent to investigate a missing cargo ship. I wasn't too fond of the ships, the CGI is fair, kind of monotone. The crew, two humans and an android, get to the ship and find a couple of people still alive. The actors are fair to good, none are familiar to me. The ship has a secret weapon, one that can destroy the Earth by knocking it out of time. The device has turned on and it's making the ship and everyone in it repeat a segment of time over and over again. Lucky for them, the androids have an offline memory, it lives in hyperspace and isn't affected by the time resets. Eventually something else happens and the movie is over. I kind of liked the concept of it but wasn't impressed for the most part. I saw it on Amazon Prime and wouldn't bother with it again. I see there's a DVD, I wouldn't need a copy, though it might turn up in one of those multi movie packs of genre films. I'd probably buy it, if the price is low enough and I didn't have most of the movies.

Operation Atlantis was another film from AP. I've been picking through their free SF movies and it's getting harder and harder to pick a good one. The AP description for Operation Atlantis said it's SF, so does the IMDb, but that's stretching it a bit. There is an underground atomic city but we don't see much of it. There's not much by way of cool spy gadgets but the main spy has a radio transmitter in his elbow. It's an 1965 Italian and Spanish co-production with American John Erickson as George Steele Agent S 03. It was filmed in both countries. There's a bit of nice scenery but most of it's dully shot. The movie pokes along and it's 100 minutes long. There's some fights, car chases and gun battles, much of which are handled at a level below average to me. The whole movie isn't up the level of the worse of the OSS-117 movies I watched a while back. Not going to bother seeing it again. It'll be removed from my Watchlist next time I get in there.