PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Arthur Askey Collection

   

The Arthur Askey Collection has 6 Arthur Askey films from the early 1940s. Band Waggon is Arthur's second film, it was followed by 7 more films released through the war years. The last of the 8, Bees In Paradise, came out in 1944 and there was a 10 year gap before Arthur's next film. Some speculate that Arthur was too associated with the war by the time it ended and people were tired of the war.

Arthur made 4 films in the last half of the 1950s and a couple in the 1970s, Arthur also worked in TV in the 1950s and 1960s. The six films in this set came from the 8 made in the 1940s. This was the period when Arthur was at the height of his popularity. The two films released after Band Waggon aren't included, Charley's (Big-Hearted) Aunt from 1940 and The Ghost Train from 1941. TGT is one of my favorite of Arthur's films. It has no musical numbers.

 

Band Waggon 1940 Written by John Wyatt, Harry S Pepper, Gordon Crier, Vernon Harris, JOC Orton, Val Guest, Marriott Edgar and Robert Edmunds, directed by Marcel Varnel.

Arthur and his pal are squatting in an empty room in the attic of the BBC's Broadcasting House. They had applied for a job there, were told to wait, and never left. When they're rumbled they're kicked out. Arthur schemes up a £3 rental in a haunted castle where they find a full TV studio hidden in the dungeons. They use the equipment to broadcast a show. It attracts the attention of the Nazis who set the studio up. Lucky for Arthur and his pals Scotland Yard arrives to save the day.

Pretty silly and filled with activity, there's a bit more singing and dancing than I care for but the gags are fast and furious.

I Thank You 1941 Original story by Howard Irving Young, screenplay by Marriott Edgar and Val Guest, directed by Marcel Varnel.

Arthur and his pal are out of work. They want to raise money for a show. They're plan is to sneak into a rich show backer's house as servants and get some backing. Arthur dresses as a woman cook even though he can't cook. Because it's a movie it actually works out for the guys in the end.

There's plenty of gags but not a much singing as the last film. It's was nice to see Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt again. They made a few films with Will Hays. Kathleen Harris plays the poor cook next door, Arthur keeps stealing stuff from her.

 

Back-Room Boy 1942 Story by JOC Orton, screenplay by Edgar Marriott, Val Guest and JOC Orton, directed by Herbert Mason. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be much by way of posters for these movies available on the internet. Even the DVDs use screen captures and promo photos for their covers.

Arthur is the guy who makes the pips on BBC radio. He has to do it every hour on the hour and his girlfriend doesn't like the constant interruptions to their love life. After she dumps him, Arthur tells his bosses he wants a position where he won't seen any women. They plonk him down in a lighthouse on an island way out in the sea north of Scotland.

Of course Arthur gets visited by many women, first a young girl who's headed to the next island to visit her uncle. Vera Frances plays the young girl, it was her first film, she made 5 more for Gainsborough Pictures. She's drolly sarcastic and a good foil for Arthur, she would appear in another of Arthur's films. I wish she'd gone onto make films as an adult.

Googie Withers arrives next, followed by a boat filled with theater gals. Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt are a couple of sailors that were crew on the ship that sank. Things are noisy until the Nazis turn up. They've got a secret hideout in a cave in the cliff below the lighthouse. Arthur and pals battle the Nazis and protect the shipping lane the sub was worrying.

I found it quite entertaining even after I've seen it a couple of times already.

King Arthur Was A Gentleman 1942 Written by Edgar Marriott and Val Guest, directed by Marcel Varnel. One of many films made at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush West London. The BBC later bought the studio and used it for making TV shows. Many episodes of Doctor Who were shot there. The commentaries for the episodes of DW have many complaints about having to work in such a tiny and hot studio.

Arthur wants to go fight the Nazis but he's a bit on the scrawny side. Arthur's got a big thing for King Arthur and the round table. His pals find a sword in a field and trick Arthur into thinking it's King Arthur's sword. A change comes over to him and he becomes quite the man. He demands to be sent to the front and the top brass send him to Germany. He has some adventures, gets a bit of romance, and causes a a helluva lot of property damage.

There's more music than I care for but the basic story is fun enough and there's all that destruction.

 

Miss London Ltd 1943 Written by Marriott Edgar and Val Guest, directed by Val Guest.

Arthur inherits half an escort agency from his mother, Evelyn Dall inherited the other half. Most of the movie is everyone singing and dancing. The agency tries to make some cash so they can donate some to the war effort. There's a good number of gags and plenty of pretty girls.

Bees In Paradise 1944 Written by Marriott Edgar and Val Guest, directed by Val Guest.

One of the weirdest of Arthur's films. He's part of a bomber crew who have to bail out, four of them wash up on the beach of an island in the Atlantic. Paradise Island is a matriarchy run like a bee hive. The Queen is worried about the lack of births of late, part of the problem is their rules on marriage, especially the one where they execute the groom two months after the marriage date.

Arthur and the guys can't believe their luck, an island filled with women who want to marry them. Wow! They'll soon find out what's up and try to survive. There's a good number of jokes and it's a bit risqué.

A nice collection and one I'll try to watch again. It's a UK region 2 DVD and won't play without an all region DVD player or VLC Player on your PC.

Ten Little Indians 1965

Ten Little Indians 1965 Based on the 1939 Agatha Christie novel that used to have a different name, screenplay by Peter Welbeck, Peter Yeldham, Erich Kröhnke and Enrique Llovet. Peter Welbeck is the pseudonym of producer Harry Alan Towers. Harry and company have moved the isolated house from an island to a mountain location only accessible via cable car. The outsides are shot in Tirol Austria and the interiors are Kenure House in Rush Ireland.

A interesting cast, Shirley Eaton, Hugh O'Brian, Stanley Holloway, Dennis Price, Wilfred Hyde-White, Daliah Lavi, Leo Gunn, Fabian, Marianne Hoppe, Mario Adorf and the voice of Christopher Lee.

All holed up in an isolated house with a bunch of strangers. They soon find out why they were there, a record player plays a record accusing them of being murders of one sort or anther. They've managed to escape punishment until now, Mr U N Owen is going fix that. Fabian is the first to get it, poisoned, just like it says in the Ten Little Indians poem. A framed copy is in each of their rooms.

Through the night one person after another is killed off until the big reveal at the end. I enjoyed it well enough. I would watch it again. You can check it out on the Internet Archive. There's a link in the title above, until they take it down. I don't know that I believe it should be there. It can't be public domain, but who knows.

 

 

Hold 'Em Jail 1932

Hold 'Em Jail 1932 Story by Tim Whelan and Lew Lipton, screenplay by Walter DeLeon, SJ Perelman, Eddie Welch and Mark Sandrich, directed by Norman Taurog.

Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey are really stupid, they try a robbery prank and sent to prison for using real guns. The prison warden is played by Edgar Kennedy, Edna May Oliver plays his wife, Betty Grable plays his daughter. I also recognized Robert Armstrong, Roscoe Ates and Warren Hymer in the cast.

The boys don't fit into prison life very well, they do get on the prison football team. Chaos on the football field and other nonsense makes poor Edgar's life a nightmare. He is a rather excitable guy to start with and to make things worse, Robert flirts with Edna, and Betty has her eye on Bert. It's a breezy bit of business, only 66 minutes, and there's plenty of noise and running about. It lost a bit of money, $55,000, at the box office. I still liked it.

Girl Crazy 1932

Girl Crazy 1932 Screenplay by Walter DeLeon, Herman J Mankiewicz, Eddie Welsh and Tim Whelan, directed by William A Seiter. It's based on the 1930 play of the same name by Guy Bolton and John McGowan. Guy Bolton had worked with PG Wodehouse on a number of plays in the 1920s. I read the movie wasn't much like the play.

 

Three songs from the play, written by George and Ira Gershwin, were used in the movie. Two are familiar to me, Bidin' My Time and I Got Rhythm. The latter was introduced in the play by Ethel Merman. Ginger Rogers was the star of the play. There was a 1943 adaptation of the play with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.

  

Bert Wheeler is a cab driver, he's driving Robert Woolsey across the California desert to a remote gambling place in a tiny town. Stanley Fields is the local thug, he's been killing the sheriffs as they've been hired. He runs the gambling and he wants to put the saloon Robert has come to work at out of business. Poor Bert gets signed up to be the new sheriff. Robert tries to keep him from getting killed, after helping get him elected. He wants to keep Stanley from getting control of the saloon.

 

Besides too much singing, there's some knockabout shenanigans, some romance, and the usual sort of things one would expect in a Wheeler and Woolsey film. They don't change their style much in their run. The RKO records say it lost $150,000, the film cost $532,000 and the box office was $555,000. I don't know what the theaters got out of the box office in those days but I could guess. I enjoyed the running about and speeded up some of the songs.

Science Fiction Sunday 632

Contactee 2021 Written and directed by Vincent Caldoni.

A therapist takes a woman who claims to have been abducted from the facility she's in to a cabin in the woods. He's hoping for alien activity, he winds up sleeping with his patient, he meets other abductees, he has a really bad time. People are stupid no matter the education they have. I didn't find it to be very entertaining. I didn't care much for the characters or the story. Oh, well, maybe a space opera shoot 'em up will be better.

Dune Drifter 2020 Written and directed by Marc Price. It turned out to be a better film than the first one. It's no found gem but it's mostly watchable.

Star fighter pilots are heading to a big battle with some alien race. They arrive in the middle of the battle, most of them are killed and the pilot of one ship crash lands with a damaged engine. She sets up a survival tent pod thing and there are some survival supplies. They won't help her ship mate, she's too badly damaged and dies after a bit.

There's little chance of fixing the ship with out a certain part. Lucky an alien ship lands and that ship has the part she needs. She fights off the alien crew and gets the part. Will she get back home. I don't know, the credits came up.

I read online that the version of the film on streaming and DVD is not the original cut. It's a censored version with the swearing muted and bits of character backstory and technical information taken out. Would it have been better, I'll never know.

It's a low budget thing, $100,000 budget, but Price makes it look a bit better than you'd expect. Especially the long space battle, it takes up the first 25 minutes of the film. It's highly ambitious on such a budget. Once the damaged ship hits the ground, the movie slows down a bit, the battle becomes more personal. I hoped it would be better, it's still below average to me, but better than some similar movies. I've seen several takes on the same plot since Enemy Mine came out. It's cheap to shoot in the desert or the woods. I wouldn't need to add it to my collection.

Friday Night Movies 833

A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop 2009 Screenplay by Shi Jianquan and Xue Jianchao, directed by Zhang Yimou. It's a remake of the Coen Brother's film Blood Simple.

Everything centers around the noodle shop in the middle of nowhere. The desert is beautiful, with rows of brilliant pastel colored hills. The people in the noodle house aren't quite so beautiful. The old man is the owner, his wife buys a gun, her lover is worried. The lover works at the noodle shop, the owner pays a soldier to kill the lovers. Of course, it all goes wrong, quite nicely, and it was fun getting there.

It's a nice adaptation and I liked the more humorous take. Glad I took a chance and bought the DVD, I'll hopefully get to watch it again someday.

Dog Eat Dog 2016 Based on the Edward Bunker novel of the same name, screenplay by Matthew Wilder, directed by Paul Schrader.

Nicolas Cage is a crook out of jail, he hooks up with William Defoe and Christopher Matthew Cook. They are absolute scum. They get hired to kidnap a kid, they screw it all up and everyone dies. Since it's a Paul Schrader film there's some onscreen jiggery pokery. The last several minutes are annoying. What am I supposed to make of that. Paul's inner brain and I don't get along.

It looked pretty good for a fairly low budget film. It was shot in Cleveland over 25 days with a crew of recently graduated film students. It didn't do well at the BO. Critics were mixed and it has yet to break 5 on the IMDb. I kind of feel 5ish, if it had been more original, I might have liked it a bit more but these aren't interesting individuals and I've seen their story over and over. I'll still keep the DVD, I might want to watch Nicolas and William chew some scenery.

Immortal Demon Slayer 2017 Director Derek Kwok co-wrote the screenplay with Hai Huang, Hezai Jin, Fan Wenwen and Henri Wong, they adapted Jin's book Wukong Biography. The movie is called The Tales Of Wu Kong in China and it's another Monkey King movie. It's supposedly set 500 years before Sun Wu Kong goes to war with the Heavenly Kingdom.

There's a long complicated plot involving a lot of people, some of them have powers of one sort or another, hardly any of them are on the same page. There's plenty of action, romance and murder. Good reminder, humans and gods don't mix, someone always winds up dead, and it isn't that immortal guy.

I enjoyed it for the most part and would watch it again. I suppose I could have a Monkey King marathon. That would take a while, I know I've got six Monkey King films, I think there's at least another. Oh, well, some other day. 

The Lad 1935

The Lad 1935 Based on the 1928 play The Lad by Edgar Wallace, screenplay by Gerald Fairlie, directed by Henry Edwards.

A breezy crime comedy with Gordon Harker. The movie opens before he gets on the scene, a pricey necklace is being stolen from a rich guy's house, one of the men is caught and sent to jail, the necklace has not been found. Gorden is in the slammer, the day before he is to be released he overhears the robber tell another man where the necklace is hidden. Outside Gordon skips along to the mansion where he takes advantage of a mistaken identity plot point. He winds up being a droll sort of hero, helping most of the family with their various problems. It's more like a comedic play than a crime movie. It's not any better than average but it's fun and there's a happy ending. Another one that I would watch again sometime.

The Mysterious Mr Davis 1939

The Mysterious Mr Davis 1939 Based on the 1928 novel The Partner by Jenaro Prieto, screenplay by Jacques Prévert and Cecil Madden, directed by Claude Autant-Lara. A quota quickie from RKO. I picked up the UK DVD awhile ago, you can buy one from Amazon for about 12 bucks. 

Henry Kendall is the guy on the right of the photo under the title above, he needs some readies. The lady is Kathleen Kelly, she plays Henry's wife, the other fellow is Guy Middleton, he plays the crooked neighbor. It's Guy that introduces the out of work Henry to some shady people. Henry invents a partner that prevents him from committing to anything to quickly.

Henry uses his never seen partner to his advantage and winds up rather well off. When things get trickier, Henry makes the mysterious Mr Davis disappear and everyone's goes wild trying to find him. Henry goes to South America with the family. Alistair Sim plays a loony ex-banker and that got a laugh from me. I got a few other laughs through the production and was happy to have bought that DVD. I would want to watch this again sometime.

The Great Van Robbery 1959

   

The Great Van Robbery 1959 Written by Brian Clemens and directed by Max Varnel. Brian some will recognize from his work on The Invisible Man, Adam Adamant Lives!, The Avengers, Bergerac, Hammer House Of Mystery and Suspense, and The Professionals. Brian's the guy who hired Diana Rigg to replace Honor Blackman on The Avengers.

Denis Shaw, more often seen as a villain, plays a Scotland Yard detective working with Interpol on a stolen money case. The thief has used various companies to buy and move goods to launder the money. Denis is hot on their trail and with all the clues  pointing to a legit business guy in London.

There's some good police work and a bit of dust up or two. It's short and it moves quite quickly. A good bit of entertainment that was fun to watch. I kept a copy from YouTube to watch again someday. You can see it int he link above.

The Green Buddha 1934

The Green Buddha 1934 Screenplay by Paul Erickson, directed by John Lemont. This is Paul's first film, the only other of his 4 other films that I've seen is Konga.

Wolf Frees is a crook, he steals The Green Buddha to sell to another man. Wolf dumps his men and runs off. Wayne Morris owns a small plane charter company, Wolf books a flight to Glasgow with him. Wolf forces Wayne to take off when the police try to stop him from leaving. Wayne tries to take Wolf's gun away and gets knocked out. Wolf manages to crash the plane safely and escape. Now Wayne has to find him and get the reward for the return of The Green Buddha so he can get a new plane.

Soon everyone is after Wolf and there's plenty of running about and some action. There's a bit of romance and a bit of a laugh too. I enjoyed it well enough and would watch it again.