Change Your Image
dsewizzrd-10906
Reviews
Escapement (1958)
Another one knocked out for the drive-in
Cheaply made and slow moving B movie, it even uses the sets from "Z cars", (which are supposed to be Scotland Yard - this is on the coast of France) twice, in two different locations, a police station and a morgue.
An American insurance agent investigates the death of a film star and suspects a psychiatric clinic in France. By a huge and unexplained coincidence he happens to find a well upholstered ex working there.
The Passionate Stranger (1957)
What is this ?
Sydney and Muriel Box wrote and Peter Rogers (of Carry On fame) produced this experimental film, which doesn't quite work, the bit in the middle is too long.
An authoress employs a driver for her husband paralysed by polio. Then the film switches to colour when it replays the novel she writes about the driver when he reads it.
This bit is very wooden and corny, and goes on for so long you think that's all there is to the film.
Golden Ivory (1954)
Hello boys
British western set in Kenya in 1890. Two brothers who are hunters join a caravan inland to Masai country looking for the legendary meeting place of elephants.
It follows the normal western storyline, that is, of a group in search of something (in this case ivory), betrayal and intrigue, a few encounters with animals, someone important dies unexpectedly, and a romance with a young ingenue.
Susan Stephen has a bit of a surprise for the boys in the cinema.
Death Is a Woman (1966)
Richard Hammond has really let himself go
Weird Z grade melodrama set in Malta. Patsy Ann Noble play a villain, but not weirdly, any song, what she was principally known for at the time.
Francesca murders the partner of a casino and then the other one ends up dead. An undercover policeman investigating a drug ring is suspected by local police as being the murderer. The plain solution is found near the end.
There is an odd bar room scene with Richard Hammond looking likes he's really let himself go, I haven't seen anyone depicted on screen before that looks so completely wasted. He appears to the the only real actor though, the others are completely wooden.
There is good incidental music throughout but the film appears to quite roughly made, even with noises from the camera crew in some scenes.
The Moonraker (1958)
How did they find a bitumen road there in 1957
American style period film set in the time of the English Republic, although somewhat more violent and without the hearty laughing.
George Baker is Moonraker, a soldier of fortune taking the son of Charles I across to France. John LeMesurier briefly plays the role of Cromwell, and Marius Goring a roundhead general.
The fight scenes are well choreographed, but the film is otherwise carelessly made with many shots of vehicular tracks and even an asphalt road (I mean come on, they were far from ubiquitous at the time). There is an American boy to enable a release in USA.
Curse of the Pink Panther (1983)
A real con
One of the last trainwrecks without Peter Sellers, made by a couple of Israeli conmen, has a few good scenes like the fight scene, the illogical car chase and the dummy scene, but the plot makes no sense. The car chase is quite good in that sort of "this is being really inexpertly filmed and someone could get actually hurt" sort of way, but there is no reason for it to have happened in the plot. The blow up doll thing, which I suspect is the actors signature act, it just weird. I guess it would work better on a stage.
With Sellers unavailable, a search was made and they managed to get an actor even worse than Sellers, some effort that. The leading man is completely wooden and has all the charisma of a cinder block.
The plot, such as it is, involves searching for Clouseau after he goes missing. Roger Moore (?) is not on the credits.
The Headless Ghost (1959)
Even worse than Scooby Doo
Mercifully short ghost story with two American leads to ensure a release in USA.
Three students, two Americans and a well upholstered Danish girl, visit a castle outside London which is reputed to be inhabited by a headless ghost. Staying there after visiting hours they encounter a ghost and there follows a Macguffin.
The only real actor winces as a woman belts out her lines at him in a moronic monotone, although the lines are so poor it would be difficult for any actor.
Scars of Dracula (1970)
Slap and tickle
One of the more lavish of the Hammer Dracula films believe it or not, with the same dodgy sets but at almost continuous musical score.
Christopher Lee plays Dracula excellently as always, the secondary characters being a bit less wooden (except Dennis Waterman playing the husband this time with his natural Eton accent, not his later hammed up Essex) although still as thoroughly 1970s and English as ever, especially the two cockney policemen.
The bats are completely hopeless and copious amounts of tomato sauce and corn plasters were used in this particularly violent version of the franchise.
The story is the same as always, this time with a selection of dolly birds, some innuendo and a bit of 1970s slap and tickle. Dracula's assistant is now merely a man.