King, Queen, Knave (1972)

Embassy Pictures
Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(YouTube)

A bumbling teenage virgin is selected by his rich uncle to take over a successful department store. He dreams about his aunt, the lovely Gina Lollobrigida, who is in an unhappy marriage. She eventually seduces him and they begin a secret and comic love affair. Gina convinces him to murder her husband while vacationing in the south of France, but as usual he bungles it, but not without some surprises. Watch out for that ending! An entertaining flick with occasional directorial flourishes from Skolimowski, but far from his best, mainly because of the unsympathetic characters.

Prison (1949)

Terrafilm (Sweden)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
My rating: 3.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(YouTube)

Bergman masterfully weaves a complex story of two crumbling relationships and a new one that develops in its ashes, as well as asking broader philosophical and religious questions. This would have fallen apart in the hands of a lesser director, but not so here, with numerous spine-tingling scenes including his longest dream sequence yet and a narrator who may or may not be the Devil himself. The core character is Birgitta, a young prostitute who gets pregnant only to have her baby taken away by its indifferent father. She is haunted by the decision. She takes up with an alcoholic, suicidal actor who has just left his wife. Together, they try to exorcise their demons. Bergman provides some comedy relief from the heavy subject matter with an extended silent movie sequence, but he can't resist including the Devil and Death as masked characters. There are no on-screen credits, they are all spoken after a prologue.

Music in Darkness (1948)

Terrafilm (Sweden)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(YouTube)

Bengt is shot at a military target range trying to save a cute puppy. He survives, but not without enduring a Bergman nightmare scene in the hospital. He wakes up blind and struggles to adapt to his handicap. He is helped in his recovery by a nurse maid, the angelic Mai Zetterling, and they fall in love, though he doesn't quite realize it at first. He makes a crude remark about her social status, sending her off crying. Separated, he gets menial jobs as a pianist at a restaurant and later at a school for the blind. They are reunited, and after some initial problems things work out just fine. It's overly sentimental and a little familiar since Bergman just finished a film about a man going blind in A Ship Bound for India. However, this time he is interested in not only how the man adjusts to living without sight, but also how that changes his place in society.

Way... Way Out (1966)

Twentieth Century-Fox Film
Directed by Gordon Douglas
My rating: BOMB
IMDb
(YouTube)

Jerry Lewis is a "weathernaut" sent to the moon, which is a ridiculous concept since there is no weather on the moon. He takes along Connie Stevens, who is forced into marrying him as a publicity stunt. They live in a moon base with a luxury living room, bedroom and TV which plays old movies like Frankenstein. Russian neighbors show up and they all get drunk on vodka. Jerry mostly plays it straight, leaving the funny parts to people like Dennis Weaver. It's an incredibly sexist movie with virtually no redeeming value.

A Ship Bound for India (1947)

Nordisk Tonefilm (Sweden)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(YouTube)

A sea captain returns home after a long voyage. He finds his old girlfriend in a bedroom, deeply depressed. In a long flashback that takes up most of the film, we learn their history. Seven years ago, the sea captain's father ran a salvage operation in a Swedish coastal town. A medical condition is causing him to go blind, so he decides to leave his wife for a floozy from the local rundown burlesque theater. She ends up falling in love with his son instead. The melodramatic plot might be written off if it weren't populated by complex, well-drawn characters. The father lives in constant anxiety over his impending blindness, the son is dealing with a "hump back" and its impact on his self-confidence, the wife is afraid of getting old and being alone while the girl at the center of it all has issues of her own. Bergman manages to not only balance all of  these characters, but make us care what happens to them. This may not be prime Bergman, but it is unmistakeably Bergman.

It Rains on Our Love (1946)

Nordisk Tonefilm  (Sweden)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(YouTube)

Recently released from prison, David stumbles on Maggi at a train station. Broke and desperate, he convinces her to stay with him for a night in a hotel room. So begins their troubled relationship. They end up renting a small house from a landlord who may or may not be helping them. He gets a menial job in a gardening shop. She reveals that she is pregnant from a former one night stand. They try to fit into the conservative Swedish small town without much luck. When David punches a tax collector who tries to kick them out of their house he is put on trial, which turns into a moral review of their life by peers and neighbors. In just his second feature film, Bergman is already exploring the nuances of relationships, and those familiar with his more mature works will be fascinated by the similarities.

The Lady Without Camelias (1953)

ENIC (Italy)
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(YouTube)

A beautiful shop girl from Milan is "discovered" and made into a film star. She is seduced by and marries her producer, although she does not love him, and he immediately takes over her life. She gives up her film career to become a lonely, bored housewife. She begins an affair with an actor, which eventually ruins her marriage. Her attempt at a comeback in films fails. There is an interesting subtext here about what is real and not real, serious and superficial, as the line between her real life and her life in the movies is blurred. However, at this stage of Antonioni's career the melodramatic aspects are emphasized more than the artistic ones, which not coincidentally is one of the issues with which the on-screen filmmakers struggle, adding yet another level of reality to this unusual film.

Assault on the Wayne (1971)

Paramount Pictures
Directed by  Marvin Chomsky
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(YouTube)

Leonard Nimoy gets to captain his own ship, a submarine, but unfortunately for him it's full of spies. His mission is to test the sub as a nuclear missile launching platform, now commonplace. The ship's doctor slowly drugs him to the point of unconsciousness. A crew member is really an explosives expert and plants two bombs. Overly familiar TV actors and cliched plot devices are what really sink it.

The Story of the Fox (1930)

UFA (Germany)
Directed by Wladyslaw Starewicz
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(YouTube)

A fairy book story set in an animal kingdom plagued by a clever fox, who tricks other animals into giving him food, or worse. The lion king sends various court appointees to stop him, but they all fail. A final military assault on the fox's castle shows the depth to which the fox can outwit his opponents. Starewicz's stunning use of stop motion animation, along with synchronized sound and music, is unparalleled for 1930, but the story is a bit episodic and can drag at times.

The Missing Link (1980)

Pils Films (France)
Directed by Picha
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(YouTube)

A French film by Picha featuring crude animation, and even cruder comedy, with a story set in the cave man days. "Oh", our hero, is born in a primitive tribe, his intelligence obviously far beyond anyone else. He soon leaves in search of "someone like me". He takes along a friendly dinosaur and wisecracking pterodactyl. They have various misadventures, none too interesting, displaying a juvenile fascination with sex. Only two scenes rise above the muck: a flying scene with the pterodactyl set to the song "Flyin" by Rick Wakeman, and a silly scene with a dragon towards the end.

Don't Give Up the Ship (1959)

Paramount Pictures
Directed by Norman Taurog
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(VHS, Magnetic Video)
(YouTube)

Another Jerry Lewis service comedy, this time he is an inept lieutenant who is being accused by brass and Congress of losing an expensive Navy ship. He is also a newlywed, but their honeymoon is constantly being interrupted, providing numerous opportunities for dumb, sexist comedy. If that wasn't enough, a pretty female Navy officer is helping him find the missing ship, providing even more dumb, sexist comedy. Truly pathetic.

Twice Upon a Time (1983)

Ladd Company/Warner Bros.
Directed by  John Korty and Charles Swenson
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(VHS, Warner Bros.)
(YouTube)

Highly imaginative story of a struggle between good and evil, acted out in dreams, well more precisely the place where dreams are made. Botch rules the Murkworks where nightmares are written then dropped on the sleepers of Din (that's us) by vultures. Greensleeves is a wizard type fellow who delivers sweet dreams using the Figmen of Imagination. Well, old Greenie is kidnapped by Botch, and it is up to a group of unlikely heroes to rescue him and the people of Din. It's a mixture of comedy and fantasy, somewhat derivative of Ralph Bakshi, especially his film Wizards. Blaring 80s music occasionally interrupts the otherwise dreamy atmosphere. The film has a troubled release history, having undergone a major post release edit that waters down and dumbs down the original version. A restored cut on DVD or Blu-ray is long overdue, but the Ladd Company is gone, and I noticed several pop culture references throughout the movie that may be holding things up with rights issues, including a clip from Star Wars, although George Lucas was a producer.

The Time Travelers (1964)

American International Pictures
Directed by Ib Melchior
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(YouTube)

A group of scientists working on a "time machine" open a window, literally, to the future, which they step through only to have it close behind them. They find a post nuke civilization populated by mutants living above ground in a scorched desert environment while a handful of others live below ground. They are desperately building a spaceship to take them to a new planet. The new arrivals are welcomed, but it is too late to bring them along to the new home. So, they rebuild their time machine, which takes them back to the present, but the timing is slightly off. They end up in a time loop, and we watch the whole movie over and over and over again.... Some interesting concepts, but the mutants and androids are campy, and so are the after-hour antics of the girls in the future, making it difficult to accept as legitimate science fiction.

Paper Man (1971)

Directed by Robert Grauman
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Amazon Instant Video)
(YouTube)

A group of college students use a computer to get a credit card by faking an identity. One by one, they are murdered. Stephanie Powers and Dean Stockwell star in this rather plodding TV mystery, although the archaic technology can be fun: it's called "logging in to the computer". A couple of good scares featuring a medical robot dummy.

The Sad Sack (1957)

Paramount Pictures
Directed by George Marshall
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(VHS, Magnetic Video)
(YouTube)

A service comedy based on the comic strip, with Jerry Lewis as a private who doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the guys. He's smart, memorizing technical manuals with ease, but also naive, he gets a hot girl but has no idea what to do with her. The plot follows him from his inept days in boot camp, where he only passes the marksmanship test with lots of help, to north Africa, where he gets involved with spies who steal a rocket. Passable fare for fans of Lewis, everyone else will probably hate it, but that's the case with most of his flicks!

The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (1958)

Warner Bros.
Directed by Karel Zeman
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(VHS, First Look)
(YouTube)

A scientist is kidnapped by submarine pirates and brought to their hideout in an extinct volcano. A fellow prisoner and scientist is working on experiments that will lead to the first atomic bomb. Our scientist manages to escape by balloon and warn the outside world. Karel Zeman attempts to recreate the look of old engravings that illustrated the original editions of the books of Jules Verne. While he achieves those goals admirably, the story gets lost in the process.We hardly get to know any character in depth. Instead, we are treated to a fantastic combination of live action and animation, populated by complex machinery and fanciful underwater life.

The Son of Cleopatra (1964)

United Artists
Directed by Ferdinando Baldi
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Retromedia)

Boring desert soap opera starring Mark Damon as "El Kebir", the half Roman/half Egyptian hero of the people. He clashes with local Roman ruler Petronio and falls in love with his daughter. The action scenes are dull, the plot meandering and the dubbing terrible. The full frame print on the Retromedia disc is pan and scan, severely diminishing the impact of the original Techniscope photography.

Vera Cruz (1954)

United Artists
Directed by Robert Aldrich
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Blu-ray, DVD, Fox/MGM)

Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster make an unlikely duo as Americans trying to profit off the Mexican revolution. Coop is a southerner fresh out of the American Civil War and is sympathetic to the Mexican cause. Lancaster is an unapologetic profiteer. They need each other but frequently clash, a tense friendship that really keeps the film interesting. The supporting cast is just as good, with Ernest Borgnine and Jack Elam part of their gang, Cesar Romero and George Macready Mexican aristocracy and Denise Darcel the love interest. It's an immensely entertaining, gritty adventure story that would influence subsequent films such as Sergio Leone's spaghetti western trilogy and Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch.

The Falcon Strikes Back (1943)

RKO Radio Pictures
Directed by Edward Dmytryk
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Warner Archive Collection)

Tom Conway settles into his role as the Falcon, after taking over for his brother George Sanders in the first two films. He uses his suave, debonair ways to seduce women and get clues. He is framed for robbery and murder. The clues lead to a large tourist hotel where more murders take place. Suspects include various women, including the hotel owner, a rich foreigner in a wheelchair and a puppeteer. It shouldn't be too hard to guess which one is the killer.

Return to Paradise (1953)

United Artists
Directed by Mark Robson
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, MGM Limited Edition Collection)

American Coop shows up on a South Seas island and starts living among the natives. First, he must deal with the minister who runs things with an iron fist. He falls in love with a young island girl, builds a hut and gets her pregnant. She dies giving birth and Coop leaves the island. Years pass, he returns to find his daughter making the same mistakes he made. Based on a  James Michener novel, it's a barely credible curiosity, filled with stereotypes and a contrived plot.

The Real Glory (1939)

United Artists
Directed by Henry Hathaway
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Fox/MGM)

A handful of American officers are sent to the Philippines to train natives to defend themselves against the evil wild natives of the jungle who rape and pillage at will. Gary Cooper is the doctor, who saves the village from cholera, uses psychology to teach them not to be afraid of the enemy and falls in love with the commanding officer's daughter; all much to the displeasure of the CO. It all leads to the Big Action Finale, a strictly routine attack on the village, with Cooper, predictably, the hero.

Archangel (1991)

Zeitgeist Films
Directed by Guy Maddin
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Zeitgeist Video)

A Canadian soldier is in Russia fighting a war and looking for his lost love, Iris. He finds another woman that looks exactly like her, Veronkha. They go to the front and fight in the trenches together. At first she rejects him, since she is married to someone else, but then she gets amnesia and realizes she loves him. Later, she changes her mind. In the film's silliest scene, her real husband loses his intestines and uses them to strangle a soldier. It's all done in a faux silent movie style, complete with intertitles and distressed film stock. The narration is intrusive, poorly voiced and unnecessary. The acting is barely tolerable.

The Threat (1949)

RKO Radio Pictures
Directed by Felix Feist
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Warner Archive Collection)

An escaped convict kidnaps the DA and detective who put him behind bars. He hijacks a moving van and takes off for the desert to meet his ex-partner with an airplane. He keeps his hostages alive, planning to take revenge, but they cleverly alert the police. An old girlfriend is also a prisoner, and she gets the last word. Competent, if slight, crime drama that unfolds with few surprises.

The Cowboy and the Lady (1938)

United Artists
Directed by  H.C. Potter
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, MGM/Fox)

Socialite Merle Oberon runs from her closeted life in New York to live in California. She goes on a blind date with her two house maids and falls in love with rodeo cowboy Gary Cooper. She makes up a personal story rather than risk alienating him with her true identity. Ole Gary falls for it, and they impulsively marry on a ship taking them to his next rodeo gig. He goes to Montana to prepare their new ranch house while she returns to break the news to her father, a possible presidential candidate. Cooper shows up at a fancy dinner and gives an awkward and forced speech to the stunned politicians about their snobbish ways. He runs back to Montana, but Merle is there waiting for him leading to the predictable happy ending.

Alice in Wonderland (1933)

Paramount Pictures
Directed by Norman Z. McLeod
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Universal)

This live action adaptation of the Lewis Carroll story (with a brief animated part) is mostly an excuse to feature all-stars from the Paramount studio in various costumes and heavy make-up. Only Gary Cooper as the White Knight and W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty are recognizable, and Fields only by his voice. Cary Grant is the Mock Turtle, but buried under his costume. The special effects aren't bad for the time, but the story tends to be episodic and Charlotte Henry is a rather boring Alice, reciting rather than acting her lines. Still, an enjoyable ride down the rabbit hole, especially the first half hour or so.

The Cry Baby Killer (1958)

Allied Artists
Directed by Jus Addiss
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Buena Vista)

In his film debut, Jack Nicholson plays a teenager who picks a fight in a drive-in restaurant with the leader of a gang who stole his girl. He accidentally shoots one of them, then spends the rest of the movie holed up in the kitchen store room with hostages. A TV crew shows up and gives us running commentary while the police mostly stand around and try to think of something to do. The memorable theme song is by Dick Kallman. Co-star Carolyn Mitchell, as Jack's girlfriend, was soon to be Mrs. Mickey Rooney, but died tragically in an ugly love triangle less than a decade later.

The Long Haul (1957)

Columbia Pictures
Directed by Ken Hughes
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Sony Screen Classics by Request)

Uneasy mixture of gritty truck drivers and relationship melodrama as Victor Mature tangles with his union boss and his wife. Mature is discharged from the Army in England and takes a job working for his wife's uncle as a truck driver. Illegal activity is rampant and he is soon swept up in it. He gets involved with platinum blonde Diana Dors, destroying his marriage. A final scene has him trying to transport a truck load of furs over a hill and across a river.

Emil and the Detectives (1964)

Walt Disney Pictures
Directed by Peter Tewksbury
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Disney)

Emil is sent to Berlin by bus to visit his grandmother, but has his pockets picked of a large sum of cash. His pursuit of the thief leads him to "hire" a group of amateur kid detectives. They discover a plan to rob a bank by digging a tunnel from an old bombed-out building. Its got a certain undefinable charm of older Disney productions and the location shooting in early 60s Berlin is interesting as well. Cindy Cassell as Emil's cousin and intrepid kid reporter steals her scenes.

Wild Horse Hank (1979)

Directed by Eric Till
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Video Service Corporation)

Teenager and tomboy Linda Blair rescues a herd of wild mustangs from beer guzzling yahoos on the Canadian prairie. She has to guide them across the badlands and a mountain pass to get them to the safety of a wildlife preserve. She gets lots of help from potential boyfriend Michael Wincott, and some friendly truckers with CB radios. Fantastic location shooting in Alberta and Nevada and a genial performance by Linda Blair.

Who Done It? (1942)

Universal Pictures
Directed by  Erle C. Kenton
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Universal)

Better-than-usual Abbott and Costello antics as they pretend to be detectives solving a murder on the set of a radio broadcast. Costello's juvenile schtick gets tiresome very fast. However, they do make fun of themselves with a couple of references to their own "who's on first" routine, proving they do have a sense of humor.

The Bermuda Triangle (1978)

Directed by Rene Cardona, Jr.
My rating: BOMB
IMDb
(DVD, VCI Communications)

John Huston and family charter a boat to explore undersea ruins in the Bermuda Triangle. Unfortunately for them, one of their passengers, a little girl, is actually the devil, and her doll is the cause of all of the problems that have occurred in the notorious region. One by one, the passengers die in various ways, all predicted by the little girl. Italian supermodel Gloria Guida is one of the first victims, her beautiful legs crushed, but she refuses to die for most of the rest of the movie. This often resembles a soap opera, it just goes on and on for nearly 2 hours. Even the luminous undersea photography is marred by the bloody spearing of real sharks. Huston must have been along for the free Caribbean vacation, but even he can't save this mess.

The Black Godfather (1974)

Cinemation
Directed by John Evans
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Xenon)

Rod Perry is a pimp who decides to take back his neighborhood from the heroin pushers and mafia. He gets help from gambling kingpin Jimmy Witherspoon and the local black militants. Poorly paced, poorly edited and amateurishly acted, stick to the trailer.

Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx (1970)

UMC
Directed by Waris Hussein
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, VCI Entertainment)

Gene Wilder is an illiterate Irishman who picks up horse dung off the streets and sells it for fertilizer. One day he is almost run over by a sports car driven by reckless college students. Margot Kidder is the American student who returns to apologize, leading to their ill-advised romance. For some reason she invites him to a formal dance with her stuffy intellectual friends which predictably ends in a brawl. She finally leaves him for good, leaving poor old Quackser to wonder what he is going to do with his life. Luckily his cousin in the Bronx comes through with a solution.

The Flying Fleet (1929)

MGM
Directed by George W. Hill
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Warner Archive Collection)

Documentary-style look at Navy flyers, from their antics at the Annapolis academy, graduation and training. A group of six are followed all the way through the process, but only one of them will become a Navy pilot. The flying scenes are terrific and aviation buffs will love every second of the historical footage. However, the rest is rather forced, including a budding romance with Anita Page and a crash landing-survival drama in the Pacific.

The Gun Runners (1958)

United Artists
Directed by Don Siegel
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, MGM Limited Edition Collection)

Hollywood-ization of the Ernest Hemingway story with Audie Murphy miscast as the skipper of a small boat in Key West. His dire financial situation forces him to help gun runner Eddie Albert, despite his moral objections. It all goes wrong in the end, but Murphy is so bland you won't really care.

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)

Columbia Pictures
Directed by Paul Mazursky
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Columbia TriStar)

Mazursky's scathing indictment of "free love" follows married couple Robert Culp and Natalie Wood after a weekend at the "Institute", where they are encouraged to let out their feelings, at any price. He tells her about an affair, and is somewhat shocked when she accepts it rather than getting jealous. However, when she has one of her own, he just about explodes. They try to extend this attitude to their best friends, with disastrous results.

Pardon My Sarong (1942)

Universal
Directed by Erle C. Kenton
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Universal)

Abbott and Costello are Chicago bus drivers who take a wealthy playboy to the seaside, when a joyride on his yacht strands them on a tropical island inhabited by cannibals. Lou becomes a sort of god by ringing a giant bell, but to win the pretty native girl must survive a trip to the volcano. Jewel thieves try to stop it. Just plain awful, and frequently offensive.

Hunter Prey (2010)

Directed by Sandy Collora
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Maya Entertainment)

Survivors of a crash landing on a desert planet hunt down their escaped prisoner. All but one is killed, leading to a long cat-and-mouse game between hunted and prey. It turns out one of them is the last surviving human and he's got information that can save, or destroy, the other's home planet. The film cannot avoid the towering influence of Star Wars: the desert setting, the design of the costumes, even the aliens all are derivative of the George Lucas original opus. The characters lack depth, they are macho, military types that rarely rise above stereotypes. The soundtrack is bombastic, overwhelming rather than enhancing the images. Finally, it displays an unhealthy, modern obsession with guns and gadgetry.

Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967)

Woolner Brothers Pictures
Directed by Jean Yarbrough
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, VCI Entertainment)

Ferlin Husky returns from Las Vegas to bring his redneck country singers to Nashville for a jamboree. Along the way, they stop at a deserted mansion for a night. Supposedly haunted, its really got a spy ring in the basement consisting of washed-up horror icons Basil Rathbone, John Carradine, Lon Chaney Jr and a man in a gorilla suit. There are frequent breaks for performances by country stars like Merle Haggard and Sonny James, which are hilariously dated and awful.

Desert Nights (1929)

MGM
Directed by William Nigh
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Warner Archive Collection)

Visitors to a South African diamond mine turn out to be crooks, a clever opening sequence that had me fooled. They kidnap the owner and set off across the desert. They battle thirst, and each other, during the long trek. Pretty Mary Nolan is a distraction. Competent, compact if somewhat familiar desert story.

Jungle Bride (1933)

Monogram Pictures
Directed by Harry Hoyt and Albert Kelley
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, VCI Entertainment)

A luxury cruise ship sinks in a Titanic-inspired opening, leaving four survivors on a remote African coast. One provides comic relief, while the other three are in a love triangle. It's sort of like Gilligan's Island, complete with the bamboo decorum and dumb monkey antics. Anita Page is the platinum blonde with perfect hair and make-up, on loan from MGM.

Hell Harbor (1930)

United Artists
Directed by Henry King
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, VCI Entertainment)

Pre-code tropical adventure that takes place on a run-down Caribbean island. Lupe Velez is the spirited island girl who falls in love with American trader Gibson Gowland. Her abusive father gets involved with a stash of pearls and murder. Rondo Hatton is a bouncer in the bar. A couple of interesting scenes, but amateurishly acted and poorly paced.

Guns at Batasi (1964)

Twentieth Century-Fox Film
Directed by John Guillermin
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Fox)

Richard Attenborough towers over the cast as a by-the-books Sgt. Major at a British outpost in colonial Africa. He's given temporary command of the company on the first night of a successful rebellion by a new government. The local soldiers, once friendly towards the British, use the opportunity to stage their own takeover of the compound. Attenborough's military training kicks in, and the men who once mocked him now depend on him for their lives. There are some memorable scenes, including a confrontation with the leader of the rebels and the final showdown, but overall it's too predictable and has an unnecessary romantic subplot with Mia Farrow, her first screen credit.

The Italian Connection (1972)

Directed by Fernando Di Leo
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Blu-ray, DVD, Raro Video)

Two American hit men are hired to kill a pimp in Milan. Mario Adorf is the pimp, and he is not going to give up easily. Framed for stealing heroin from New York mobsters, he proves to be both elusive and intelligent, driven by fear but also a sense of bewilderment that every gangster in Milan wants him dead. Includes one very good chase scene, but marred by repellent violence unnecessary to the plot.

Fritz the Cat (1972)

Cinemation
Directed by Ralph Bakshi
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, MGM)

The 1960's counter-culture turned into the 1970's sex and drug culture, and Fritz the Cat led the way. He's a pot-smoking intellectual and a guitar-playing hippie, but mostly he just wants to get laid. When the pigs (literally) raid his latest sex party, he goes into hiding with black radicals. He almost gets killed in race riots, so decides to leave the city and become a poet in California. His "old lady" is a real drag, and he ditches her when their car breaks down in the desert. He gets picked up by some drugged-out bikers who turn out to be violent revolutionaries. It's not nearly as shocking now as at the time of its release, there had never been an X-rated cartoon, and its themes have dated badly, however it's a unique time capsule of a particular time and place that has long since disappeared.

Morvern Callar (2002)

Directed by Lynne Ramsay
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Palm Pictures)

Samantha Morton comes home one day to find her boyfriend dead on the floor, having committed suicide by slashing his wrists. She continues her normal existence for a few days, stepping over the body like it was just another piece of furniture. She gets the bright idea, probably the first and only one of her life, to change the name of the author on the book he has written and left on their computer to her own and send it away to a publisher. After cutting up and disposing of the body, she goes to Spain with her brain-dead best friend and they party all night in clubs and hotel rooms. They take a taxi to the country side and wander around lost in the desert. The publishers eventually show up and offer her a ton of money. Back in Scotland, she gets her check and leaves town. Existential angst for the Millennial Generation, but the characters are so vapid that you have to wonder the point of it all.

The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926)

United Artists
Directed by Henry King
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, MGM/Fox)

Eastern tycoon tries to tame the Colorado river and transform the desert into an Eden. The first step is to build a dam, but his chief engineer, Ronald Coleman, has trouble keeping the local folks in line. He gets tangled up in a romance with desert beauty Vilma Banky and her other suitor, a young Gary Cooper in his first credited role. The plot goes astray with some convoluted business dealings, causing most of the population to skip town. Then the dam breaks, destroying the town, well, at least a miniature model of the town. Desert location shooting elevates this melodramatic Hollywood spectacle to just tolerable.

The Music Man (1962)

Warner Bros.
Directed by Morton DaCosta
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Blu-ray, DVD, Warner Bros)

Con man Robert Preston arrives in a small Iowa town, intent on selling them musical instruments and uniforms and then skipping out. He doesn't count on falling in love with librarian Shirley Jones. He goes through with his plan, and the town is magically transformed, without ever having played a note. This walks a fine line between nostalgic Americana and just plain annoying, with quirky characters and a rather bland leading man in Preston. I just don't know if I could take listening to Ron Howard's fake lisp any longer. Egads!

The Jazz Singer (1927)

Warner Bros.
Directed by Alan Crosland
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Warner Bros.)

Legendary first "talkie" ironically has very little talking, it's a mostly silent film with a synched musical soundtrack. Briefly, for maybe a minute or so, Jolson talks to his mother after singing a song for her. The story is overly familiar: Jewish boy from the New York ghetto leaves home to find fame and fortune, returning home years later to attempt to reconcile with his parents, now old and infirm. Jolson's jazz antics can be a bit over the top, and his "crying voice" is definitely an acquired taste, but his personality is the film, for better or worse.

Don Juan (1926)

Warner Bros.
Directed by Alan Crosland
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Warner Archive Collection)

John Barrymore plays both the legendary lover and his father in the early scenes. The young Don Juan learns to love, but never trust, women when his father is murdered right in front of him. As an adult in Rome, his life is a hectic juggling act of the absurd: a woman in the bedroom, two in the living room, more lined up for the evening, a calendar with  hour-by-hour appointments. It's not until he meets Adriana, a young Mary Astor, who initially rejects him, sending him into a love-struck spiral. She has also caught the eye of Cesare Borgia, the brother of Lucrezia Borgia, who will stop at nothing, including imprisonment, torture and murder, to keep them apart. The second half or so is grand entertainment, with a memorable sword fight, touches of horror form an evil sorcerer and of course a happy ending. The movie is notable as the first with a synchronized, pre-recorded music soundtrack, played on a Vitaphone disc, with occasional sound effects; dialogue is still conveyed with title cards.