PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Cherry Picker 1972

The Cherry Picker 1972 Based on the novel Pick Up Sticks by Mickey Phillips, screenplay by Peter Curran, directed by Peter Curran. The was released in the US in 1974.

A creepy son, Bobby Sherman, of a millionaire just wants to screw off and not work. His father doesn't care for his layabout son and me neither. The father hires hires a motivational person, played by LuLu, to trick the son into getting a job. Lulu winds up marrying the son and she has a miserable time with his running about with other women including Lulu's father's mistress. What did she expect, marrying a guy like that. Lulu disappears for a bit and returns pregnant. That makes the son act more and more like a dick making me wonder what the hell Lulu sees in him. As the movie ends the son is trapped in a working situation. Ha ha.

The script was fair but I've heard most of those plot points before. There aren't enough jokes but occasionally something would make me snicker. The son is a despicable guy who doesn't seem to be punished enough for being a bastard. Some of the rest of the cast are more interesting: Terry-Thomas, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Patrick Cargill, Robert Hutton, Jack Hulbert and Fiona Curzon. Spike Milligan plays an Indian man in a role that would be considered rather racist today. You can check it out on YouTube. link provided.

Der Hund Von Blackwood Castle 1968

Der Hund Von Blackwood Castle 1968 Based on the Edgar Wallace novel The Hound Of Blackwood Castle, screenplay by Herbert Reinecker, directed by Alfred Vohrer.

A giant beast is killing people at Blackwood Castle and Scotland Yard comes to investigate. There's also a plot about Blackwood's owner has died and a his daughter has come to claim the castle.

The movie has a nice quick pace and there's plenty going on. The characters are interesting and there's a nice mix of danger, plot twists and gags. I enjoyed it and will want to see it again some time.

Jumping For Joy 1956

Jumping For Joy 1956 Written by Henry Blyth and Jack Davies, directed by John Paddy Carstairs. A Frankie Howerd film with Stanley Holloway, Alfie Bass, Richard Wattis, Charles Hawtry, Joan Hickson and Lionel Jeffries.

Frankie works at the local greyhound race track, he get fired for his clumsiness. He buys a poorly preforming racing dog on the way out and his land lady kicks him out of his flat. He forms a plan with Stanley Holloway to make some money from the dog. They race the dog, it does better than it had and the old owner wants to buy it back. Frankie wants to keep the dog and there's trouble ahead for him. Eventually it's all sorted out and there's a bit of a happy ending.

Frankie is a favorite of mine and I find his silly antics amusing. I've seen most of his films and TV shows and there aren't many unseen left items for me to find. I need to watch some of them over again.

Science Fiction Sunday 757

Doctor Who 2 Series 12 Episodes 3 - 5

 

Orphan 55 January 12 2020 Written by Ed Hime and directed by Lee Haven Jones.

 

The Tardis gang get an invite to the Tranquility Spa. They discover it's in a sealed dome and the planet is a barren wasteland that is populated with mutated monsters called Dregs that want into the dome. The dome's security is breaking down and the Dregs get in, killing some vacationers and crew. 

 

It turns out the daughter of the spa's builder has sabotaged the place because mom didn't care much about her. What an ass. The Doctor works things out eventually.

 

Nikola Tesla's Night Of Terror January 19 2020 Written by Nina Metivier and directed by Nida Manzoor.

 

The Doctor meets Nikola Tesla and helps with another alien invasion. They use the Wardenclyffe Tower to blast the alien ship.

 

Fugitive Of The Judoon January 26 2020 Written by Vinay Patel and Chris Chibnall, directed by Nida Manzoor.

 

The Judoon arrive in Gloucester looking for someone. They find them only to have the Doctor step in. Turns out the person the Judoon are looking for is the Doctor. A creature called Gat is their client and the Doctor they are looking for isn't our current Doctor. It's another lady, that's her on the right.

 

The Doctor gets a bit of help from Jack Harkness. It was nice to see Jack again, wish the part was bigger and more entertaining.

I didn't find these episodes to be anything much more than average. According to the Wikipedia this series has 6 of the least watched episodes. The UK viewer ratings drop off as the rest of the series is broadcast.

There was a commentary and a short making of featurette for each episode.

Friday Night Movies 957

The Story Of Mankind 1957 Based on the 1921 novel of the same name by Hendrik Willem van Loon, screenplay by Irwin Allen and Charles Bennett, directed by Irwin Allen.

The Great Court Of Outer Space puts the human's of Earth on trail for the invention of the Super H-Bomb. The court will decide to stop the bomb or or let the human's destroy themselves.

Defending the human's is The Spirit Of Man, played by Ronald Colman, prosecuting the human's is the Devil, Mr Scratch, played by Vincent Price. They travel through time and space to visit various famous people from many times and places.

John Carradine plays Khufu and there were many other stars in similar roles. The poster has a list of most of the actors in the film. It's an impressive list and certainly one of the reasons I picked up the DVD. Even from an early age I tended to follow certain actors and would watch films because they appeared in them. I'm still keeping an eye out for films with them, I've not seen them all.

Groucho Marx plays colonist Peter Minuit, his brothers Harpo and Chico are also in the film but they don't appear in a scene together. It was the last film for the fellows and their first color film. Harpo played Sir Isaac Newton and Chico played a monk.

Dennis Hopper plays Napoleon Bonaparte and Marie Wilson played Marie Antoinette. Having 44 year old Hedy Lamarr playing 19 year old Joan Of Arc was a bit of an odd choice. Peter Lorre only has two lines of dialog playing Emperor Nero but he does get to laugh a lot, while Rome burns.

The Devil and The Spirit play tit for tat with human accomplishments and failures. Eventually the Court Of Outer Space has to make a decision. They fail and push the decision on to the future. Hopefully we'll keep from destroying ourselves.

I enjoyed the film despite it not being that good. It's more interesting for what it is than for it's story. You can try it out on YouTube. You might like it, or not, doesn't matter, it's what it is.

Miami Connection 1987 Story by Richard Park and Y K Kim, screenplay by Joseph Diamond, directed by Richard Park (Park Woo-Sang) and Y K Kim.

Dragon Sound is a band that plays at clubs to make money so they can go to college. The Dragon's live together in a house near the college. Y K Kim is Mark, he teaches the band Taekwondo and plays rhythm guitar. Singer  Jane and guitarist John are dating and Jane's brother Jeff doesn't approve of the relationship.

Jeff has a gang of thug and his pal Yashito has his own gang of Miami Ninjas. The Ninja's steal a big supply of cocaine from some other guys. The drug dealers seem to disappear from the film.

The Dragon's replaced another band who are mad at getting fired, they try to beat up the club owner but he's good at martial arts and kicks the band's collective butts. The failed band members get Jeff's gang to attack Dragon Sound but that fails too. Jeff is determined to separate the couple and kidnaps a band member. Y K leads a rescue and Jeff is killed. Yashito brings his Miami Ninjas for some revenge. Of course the Dragon's prevail.

I enjoyed the film despite it's many weaknesses. The script is poor but not much worse than the average American made martial arts film. The acting is bad, poor Y K can hardly speak English and he still does better than some of the other actors. The stunts range from good to absolutely dreadful.

On the plus side Maximo Munzi, the cinematographer and editor, did a good job shooting the film and putting it together. It got into a few theaters in 1988 but failed to pull in the crowds and disappeared for a number of years. It cost about a million and didn't make much money back. Alamo Drafthouse re-released the film in 2010 and recently Vinegar Syndrome released the film on 4K and Blu-ray. I don't know that I need to buy one as I doubt I'm going to need watching it again.

Keeping Mum 2005

Keeping Mum 2005 Written by Niall Johnson and Richard Russo, directed  by Niall Johnson.

Maggie Smith comes to work for Rowan Atkinson and Kristin Scott Thomas as their new housekeeper. She fails to mention that twenty five years ago she killed her husband and his mistress, went to jail and has just been released. She handles some of the family problems swift blinding violence.

It's rather droll and amusing. I got a few laughs from it but it might be a while before I'd need to see it again.

The Spy With Ten Faces 1986

The Spy With Ten Faces 1986 Screenplay and direction by Alberto De Martino. A West German and Italian spy film.

Paul Hubschmitt is Upperseven, a spy who's a master of disguise. He's security for a pile of money going to several African countries. A villainous gang wants the money to fund their missile base. Karin Dor is a CIA agent. That's the two of them above.

There's the usual spy stuff, plenty of talking, a few fights, some gun battles and a bit of driving about in cars. There's plenty of collateral damage and a nice explosion.

I enjoyed it for the most part but there's nothing special about it, I turned up the speed after a bit. I might watch it again but I'd want to watch those OSS-117 films again, and the Fantomas movies, maybe James Bond. You get the idea.

The Hunted 2003

The Hunted 2003 Written by David Griffiths, Peter Griffiths and Art Monsterastelli, directed by William Friedkin.

Tommy Lee Jones is a retired Special Forces trainer and Benicio del Toro is one of his students. Tommy gets asked by the FBI to hunt down Benicio who's been killing citizens. He's killed so many people for the government that he's got PSTD. Some hunters set him off and he slaughters them all in a run through the woods. 

Benicio gets caught and Special Ops guys take him away to kill. He can't go to trial as he knows too much. Benicio escapes after killing all the agents. Tommy goes after him and eventually the pair fall off a waterfall. They battle to the end and Benicio isn't the winner. Tommy goes home.

It's about average for an action film. I bought a DVD cheap somewhere, I usually like Friedkin and Tommy Lee, I'm likely to rewatch it again sometime but not before a couple of Friednkin's earlier movies.

Science Fiction Sunday 756

Doctor Who Series 12 Episodes 1 - 2

 

Spyfall Part 1 January 1 2020 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Jamie Magnus Stone.

 

The Tardis gang get rounded up by MI6. Nice to see Stephen Fry as C, sad he had such a short role. There have been several spies killed by mysterious glowing white humanoid creatures. A media guy is suspected to be involved. Lenny Henry plays the media guy Daniel Barton.

 

The Doctor makes contact with O, an MI6 agent investigating alien activity. The Tardis gang investigates Daniel, eventually chasing him onto an airplane. It turns out that O is really the Master.

 

Spyfall Part 2 January 5 2020 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Jamie Magnus Stone. 

 

The Doctor is transported to the alien's world where she meets Ada Lovelace. They get dropped into 1834 where they meet Charles Babbage. The rest of the Tardis gang are after Daniel but he's got connections and he's branded them criminals.

 

The Doctor and Ada transport to 1943 Paris where they meet a woman in the resistance called Noor. The Master starts his plan to destroy the human race but the Doctor foils his plan and sends him to the alien's world.

 

The Doctor finds out that the Master has destroyed Gallifrey.

My interest was buoyed up by guest stars Stephen Fry and Lennie Henry but generally I'm not too excited to see the new episodes. I was more excited to see the Murdoch Mysteries that I watched a month or so ago. Despite liking the new Master but I'm rather tired of the character in general. Hope he won't come back for a while.

Both episodes had a commentary and a making of featurette. They were fairly entertaining.

Friday Night Movies 956

A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse 1975 Written by Masahiro Kakefuda and Nobuaki Nakajima, directed by Kazuhiko Yamaguchi. A Japanese film of the pink sort.

A Japanese erotic horror film set in a house of prostitution. The movie opens on the eve of the end of legal prostitution. In order to stay in business the owner of the house converts it to a bath house. The girls will rent the rooms from him. They can give their customers soapy baths and for an additional under the counter charge, a happy ending. Yukino doesn't want to work that way and decides to quit. Her husband Toriyama is a piece of human garbage, he tricks her into going to work at the bathhouse by making her think he's deep in debt with gangsters. In reality he's getting paid by the bathhouse owner's wife. Toriyama starts an affair with the owner's wife behind Yukino's back.

Yukino's sister, Mayumi, comes to live with them. Toriyama immediately rapes her. The life is hard for Yukino, she wants to leave the business, Toriyama and the owners wife beat her to death. They scum brick Yukino up in the basement wall, under the watchful eye of her black cat. Soon after Mayumi goes to work at the bathhouse. Things get worse for the baddies when Yukino's ghost and her black cat get their revenge on.

It's partially entertaining but I was hoping for more supernatural stuff and less beatings and torture. It's a mean place work and the people there are pretty horrible, most everyone comes to a bad end. I don't feel the need to pick up a copy now that I've seen it. Glad I got to see it.

Brutal Massacre A Comedy 2007 Written and directed by Stevan Mena.

David Naughton plays a horror director who's had three flops in a row. He's hoping to get out of his slump with his new picture Brutal Massacre. A documentary film maker is following David around with a cameraman. The documentary guy reveals all many of the bad things that have happened on David's past shoots, he has a lot of problems making his films and a person died during the making of a few of them. Despite that, a handful of his old crew are back to work with him. Naughton plays the director as a rather clueless guy, it's a wonder anyone would want to work with him. Certainly his three recent failures are keeping the money men at bay. He manages to get a budget together, then screws the picture by putting his crew up in a nice motel. Things get worse and worse as the shoot goes on. It's piled on high and deep. Much of the trouble is caused by everyone's lack of focus, David hires people without checking on their past work.

It's sort of funny, I did laugh occasionally but not always at the jokes. I did tire of the stupid characters, especially when there are so many of them. Ellen Sandweiss, some might remember her from The Evil Dead, is the most competent of the lot but even she has her mental and physical limits. She should never have gotten mixed up with that poo. The film has a bit of a happy ending, except for Carl. He didn't fair too well. Oh, well. It's another film I doubt I would buy now that I've seen it but I was happy to have a gander.