PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Out Of The Blue 1947

Out Of The Blue 1947 Short story by Vera Caspary, screenplay by Vera Caspary, Walter Bullock and Edward Eliscu, directed by Leigh Jason.

A screwball comedy about a dead body on a balcony. Nosy neighbors report the body but the police don't find anything. George Brent and Carole Landis are a married couple, she's pretty bossy and he's pretty limp. Turhan Bey is an artist that draws women in bathing suits. He has a dog that likes burying bones in Carole's balcony garden. She doesn't like the dog and insists it must go. Virginia Mayo owns a dog kennel, she's trying to mate Turhan's dog to one of her dogs. Ann Dvorak meets George while he's eating on his own. She's a bit drunk and pretty forceful, they wind up at Georges place while the wife is out of town. No matter what George was thinking might happen he's hardly ready for what does.

I enjoyed the heck out of the movie and had a good laugh or five. The cast is great and Turhan Bey is a favorite of mine. You can see it on YouTube. Nice copy.

Massage Parlor Murders! 1973

Massage Parlor Murders! 1973 Directed by Chester Fox and Alex Stevens. No writer is credited on the film, the IMDb or the Wikipedia.

A serial killer is murdering massage parlor workers, he's using the seven deadly sins as his guide. The police are after him but there are no real leads. One of the cops gets involved with one of the massage ladies but that ends poorly for her. It ends poorly for the murderer when he finally meets a massage gal who can fight back.

It's a poorly made film with a mediocre script. The acting is all over the place, nobody stands out in that crowd. There's plenty of nudity and some violence. Lots of good shots of New York in 1973. Good filler to pad out the film to 80 mins. I laughed at a couple of spots, no joke, just some bad film making. Not something I would need to see again.

Jackpot 1960

Jackpot 1960 Story by John Sherman, screenplay by Montgomery Tully and Maurice J Wilson, directed by Montgomery Tully. A British crime film with William Hartnell.

An ex-con tries to get back with his wife but she's not interested. He gets involved in a robbery of a nightclub. William Hartnell plays the police Superintendent that goes after the crooks. Eddie Bryne plays the nightclub owner, he's a nasty guy who's after the crooks too.

It's a good solid film that doesn't waste time on much. It's not really much above average and there's nothing outstanding. Still, watchable and entertaining. I'd watch it again.

Two Wives At One Wedding 1961

Two Wives At One Wedding 1961 Written by Brian Clemens and Eldon Howard and directed by Montgomery Tully, produced by The Danzigers.

Tom is getting married, imagine his surprise when  a woman shows up on his wedding day claiming to be his wife. They had meet and had an affair when Tom was in hospital in France during WW2. She claims they were married but he has no recollection of it, she'd want £10,000 for a divorce. Tom goes on the defensive and tries to find out if she's telling him the truth.

I thought it's wasn't much more than average but I got through it. The story is weak but the cast is fairly decent with Gordon Jackson playing Tom. There's a copy on YouTube you want watch. Link in the usual place.

Friday Night Movies 1006

Death Whistles The Blues 1964 Story and screenplay by Luis de Diego and Jesús Franco, directed by Jesús Franco. A Spanish crime film set in Cuba, Jamaica and New Orleans. It appears on a two movie DVD from Severn films. The film was made in 1962 but not released to theaters for two years.

Castro and Julius are truck drivers, little do they know they've been set up by their partner Vogel, he's sent them on a trip with a truck filled with weapons for some rebels. Here come the police, Julius is killed and there goes Castro off to jail. Vogel marries the wife of Julius. Time passes, Castro is out and looking for a bit of revenge. Castro finds that Julius isn't dead, he'd been shipped off another prison. Released, he's gone back to playing in a jazz band.

Castro lucks out and makes friends with a couple of arm wrestling fishermen in a bar. They help Castro in his fight with Vogel, they've become tired of Vogel's stranglehold on the local fish business. Julius gets run down, Castro suspects Vogel had it done but he has no evidence. Castro doesn't tell anything to the cops, even after he gets beat up pretty bad. Vogel has a connection to a night club, the movie spends a lot of time there, there are a few songs sung by a singer. There's the usual underworld characters you'd expect to see is such a place, petty crooks, seedy gun men, corrupt politicians and prostitutes.

It's a nice looking film with a good score and musical numbers. The story is entertainingly told and there's a good cast to bring it to life. I enjoyed it more than any other Jesús Franco film I've seen. I'll want to watch it again someday.

Rififi In The City 1963 Novel by Charles Exbrayat, screenplay by Jesús Franco Gorzalo Sebastián and Juan Cobos, directed by Jesús Franco. A Spanish film set in Central America.

A local police detective is obsessed with arresting Leprince, a crooked local politician. Leprince has his fingers in all sorts of vice including a nightclub. A lot of the film is set in the nightclub, plenty of yakking with the occasional musical numbers. An informer claims to have proof but he disappears. A while later he turns up dead at the police detective's house. Someone starts murdering Leprince's cronies one by one. The bodies pile up in this one.

I enjoyed it but didn't think it was entertaining as the first movie in the Severin DVD. It has a good story and a good score. The musical numbers are rather typical nightclub songs. I got bored with about half of them in each movie and fast forwarded to the talking bits. The film looks good and it's one I would watch again someday.

City Of Shadows 1955

City Of Shadows 1955 Screenplay by Houston Branch, directed by William Whitney.

A gangster hires a paperboy to help him put the other gangster's slot machine business out of order. The gangster takes over the gambling racket. The gangster and the kid remain pals, the kid grows up and the gangster sends him to law school. He helps the gangster beat a rap with a legal loophole still on the books. The young lawyer wants to keep the old gangster out of jail but his henchmen in the gang aren't having that. It gets a bit dark before it mostly has a happy ending.

It's pretty standard stuff but still entertaining. You can check it out on YouTube.

 

Tiger By The Tail 1954

Tiger By The Tail 1954 Based on Never Come Back by John Mair, screenplay by John Gilling and Willis Goldbeck, directed by John Gilling. The film was produced by my favorite producing duo, Robert S Baker and Monty Berman.

Larry Parks plays an American Journalist called John. He's in London investigating some crooks when he gets involved with a woman, they date but fall out over his inquiry's into her life. When he picks up her diary she pulls a gun, in a struggle the guns discharges and she dies. He grabs the diary, cleans up his presence and flees. The rest of the movie is him running about trying to keep ahead of the police and the baddies. 

It was about average but mostly entertaining. You can test drive it by following the link in the title above.

Friday Night Movies 999

Death Machine 1995 Written and directed by Stephen Norrington. We watched the director's cut from the Kino Lorber Blu-ray. It's got three versions of the movie on two disks. Norrington only directed four films, this was the first, followed by Blade, The Last Minute and The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I've liked the 3 films of his that I've seen, TLM is the one I haven't seen. He hasn't directed any films since 2003 but has occasionally worked in special effects. He has no credits on the IMDb after 2016.

Ely Pouget is head of Chaank Armaments Corp, Brad Dourif is a designer, Richard Brake and William Hootkins are executives. The Corp's enhanced solder glitches and kills some people in a diner. The story is out and the public isn't happy. The corp tries some damage control. Ely wants full public disclosure but the board says no. She wants Brad fired but the board says no.

Ely has an encounter with Brad about the project in Vault 10 and Brad threatens her. He's a major loony but fun to watch. Things get worse between them and Brad sends his killer robot from Vault 10 after her. Soon the robot is clanking around the building, slaughtering the staff. Some Eco-warriors break into the building, they become Ely's reluctant partners battling the robot and trying to escape. Ely locks Brad in Vault 10 with his robot. Hardly anybody gets out alive.

It's got plenty of great robot action, lots of clanky noise, good sets and models, plenty of gun shooting and explosions. I enjoyed it and I will order the Blu-ray for myself. I want to see the other versions of the film and I'm curious about the Norrington commentaries. The Blu-ray is only 15 bucks on Amazon. Seems a bargain.

The Lady And The Monster 1944 Based on the novel Donovan's Brain by Curt Siodmak, screenplay by Dane Lussier and Frederick Kohner, directed by George Sherman. He watched the new Kino Lorber Republic Horror Collection Blu-ray. It's got four 1940s films on two Blu-rays with plenty of commentaries.

 

Erich von Stroheim is Professor Franz Mueller, he's a mad scientist with his own laboratory in a fake looking castle in the middle of the Arizona desert. Erich believes he can keep a human brain alive out of the body. Mueller is asked by the local rangers if he can help a man who was in a plane crash. When the man dies Mueller takes advantage and removes the brain. They find out the dead man is a millionaire business man called Donovan. Richard Arlen and Vera Ralston are Erich's assistants, Patrick and Janice. The pair have a thing going on but Mueller also has feelings for Janice, he tries his best to disrupt the relationship.

Donovan's brain seems to be sending messages to a tired Patrick and Mueller encourages him to make contact with the brain. Patrick does, Donovan slowly takes over Patrick's brain, turning him into a slave. Donovan's lawyer is investigating the death, he finds the brain in the lab with documents about the experiment. Donovan had hid all his money, he sends Patrick on a mission to recover it. Things come to a head when Mueller tries to kill Patrick. The house keeper shoots him dead  and Donovan's brain gets dashed to the floor. Patrick goes to jail for monkeying with a dead man's brain and Janice promises to wait for him.

I mostly enjoyed the movie but it sure dragged at times, I was drifting off for a while there and there were complaints about the pace. A New York Times review, at the time of release, called it "a mite too lethargic." They aren't wrong. I seem to remember that the 1953 Donovan's Brain film was a better picture but it's been ages since I've seen it. I'll have to watch it and see. I'm looking forward to the commentaries on the film.

Friday Night Movies 998

Mad Heidi 2022 Written by Sandro Klopfstein, Johannes Hartman and Gregory D Widmer, directed by Johannes Hartman and Sandro Klopfstein.

For the last 20 years Switzerland has been under the control of a dictator who makes cheese. It's against the law for anyone to make their own cheese, it's against the law to be lactose intolerant. Heidi's boyfriend gets caught making goat cheese and Heidi gets arrested for complaining about Kommandant Knorr killing her boyfriend. In jail Heidi is bullied by the other women, she breaks out and a gaggle of nuns take her in and train her to fight the fascists. It's all revenge to the end.

I thought it was a lot of fun. One of the viewers here said it was the best exploding head movie he'd ever seen. There's plenty of goopy bits and violent action. The sets and scenery are fun. I enjoyed the heck out of it and would want to watch it again.

The Cat Creeps 1946 Story by Gerald Geraghty, screenplay by Edward Dein, Jerry Warner and Gertrude Walker, directed b Erle C Kenton.

The last of the Universal horror titles to be shot. It was released on a double bill with She-Wolf Of London. Horror was failing to draw the patrons, The Brute Man was shot just before The Cat Creeps, it was sold to PRC to release.

The movie is an old dark house sort of story with a group of people on an island without a way to get home after their boat is burnt. An old lady in the house is attacked as the visitors arrive at the door. They are there to search for $200,000 in cash that was stolen in a robbery 15 years ago. Someone finishes off the old lady and another guy has a bad fall down the basement stairs. Now the rest of the visitors have to try to keep alive until they can be rescued.

There's a cast of decent character actors, Noah Beery Jr, Frederick Brady, Douglass Dumbrille, Jonathan Hale, Paul Kelly are the few I knew. The story is pretty standard stuff, it gives the cast something to do most of the time.  It's not great but it's got some jokes. I enjoyed it and I'd watch it again.

Friday Night Movies 997

Alicia En El Pueblo De Las Maravillas 1999 Screenplay by Aldo Busto Hernández, Luis Felipe Bolaños and Daniel Diaz Torres, directed by Daniel Díaz Torres. A movie about the social state of Cuban in the 1980s that alludes to Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland but isn't an adaptation of the book. It was considered controversial when it came out and was banned in Cuba 3 days after release.

Alice travels to a small town where she has some weird and disturbing things happen to and around her. It's a horrible filthy town that's home to failed officials. Like Alice in the novel Alicia gets caught up in local activities that hardly make any sense to her.

It's a satire that's rather confusing if you don't know much about the country and the era. I had to read the Wikipedia page to get details that the movie didn't always provide. You can watch the movie and decide for yourself, it's not a great copy but it's watchable. There's a DVD on Amazon but it's not worth $15.43 to me, plus tax. I'm not likely to watch it again.

Pig 2020 Story by Vanessa Block and Michael Samoski, screenplay and direction by Michael Samoski. It's his first film. I normally avoid a drama but I'll make an exception for Nicolas Cage on occasion. 

Nic lives in the woods with his pig, they hunt truffles for a living. They sell them to Amir who sells them to fancy restaurants in Portland. One day Nic is attacked  and his pig stolen. The movie has Nic travel around with Amir and it leads to some trouble for them.

They locate the scummy crack heads that stole the pig and learn it was taken to Portland. They travel to Portland where a whole lot of story is heaped on our plates before they find out what really happened to Nic's pig.

I enjoyed the film and would watch it again.