richardchatten

Having already acquired a reputation for tackling big themes Stanley Kramer rolled up his sleeves to tackle nothing less than the ultimate environmental catastrophe in this adaptation of Nevile Shute's novel.

Aided by the star power of Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Anthony Perkins and Fred Astaire - with money shots of a deserted San Francisco - it's depiction of the stoical acceptance of the end of everyone's mortal existence stays with you.

Every time I see 'The Wrong Box' I don't expect Wilfrid Lawson to make it to the end. But he actually lasted long enough to play the heroine's father in this Hammer adventure filmed in Ireland.

In the title role a young Finnish actress named Carita is hopelessly miscast in a role that would have suited Ingrid Pitt.

But Donald Houston and Percy Herbert aren't exactly typecast as ancient Romans either.

A garrulous Danzigers attempt at an Ealing comedy - dated by an annoying trad jazz score - that appeared in the same year that the Euston Arch was demolished in the face of widespread public opposition.

With a plot doubtless owing much to 'Arsenic and Old Lace', this particular pair of sweetly murderous siblings - whose house is equipped with bottles marked 'Poison' and a box marked 'Explosives' - although ostensibly motivated by a desire to prevent the removal of a Victorian gaslight, but also from "a pathological hatred of salesmen" - and started their killing spree with vacuum cleaner salesmen - evidently actively enjoy their work; a penchant made explicit when "baby brother" Albert observes "All the fun's watching them being carted away!"