Scream of Fear (1961)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Scream of Fear (1961) – S. Holt

Susan Strasberg keeps seeing her dead father around the estate after having been away for 10 years – except he is supposed to be very much alive according to her stepmother!  With the aid of her father’s chauffeur, Strasberg tries to solve the mystery, even as those around her indicate that they are concerned for her sanity.  Of course, if her father is really dead, then Strasberg is set to inherit his millions.  This provides a motive for doing her in – and her father too – or so she begins to think.  It is hard to separate the paranoia from the reality at times in this weird tale from Hammer studios.  Director Seth Holt allows stillness and silence to create suspense and absorb the viewer in the potential horror before her or him.  Yet something is not quite right in this solid spooky chiller!

The Black Swan (1942)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Black Swan (1942) – H. King

Although it won an Oscar for best color cinematography, The Black Swan is a rather lacklustre swashbuckler.  Perhaps the genre was worn out after the 1930s and the era of Errol Flynn and all those Alexandre Dumas stories.  Indeed, this film shares strong similarities with Flynn’s Captain Blood (1935) which is much better.  Tyrone Power is good here, but although he was known for adventure films, I liked him better in later darker films such as The Razor’s Edge (1946) or Nightmare Alley (1947).  Also, there are some funny character turns here:  Laird Cregar as a mountainous Captain Morgan (yes, of the rum) and George Sanders unrecognizable in a wild red hair and beard as Captain Billy Leach.  Maureen O’Hara is fine as Powers’ love interest but her scenes are rather static.  All told, this is fine Saturday afternoon fare but look to the earlier decade for the good stuff.

  

Top Five (2014)

☆ ☆ ☆

Top Five (2014) – C. Rock

Chris Rock is an engaging performer and he seems like he must be a nice guy.  I haven’t really been following his career.  This is the third feature film he has directed.  He plays what you would have to assume is a version of himself, a famous comedian trying to branch out into more serious pursuits being interviewed by the New York Times.  There is now a genre of these types of movies that blend reality and fiction, a genre that can be pretty fascinating and funny -- as in Tristam Shandy (2005) with Steve Coogan -- but which can also include horror shows like Jerry Springer’s The Ringmaster (1998).  Rock’s film is somewhere in the middle. Rosario Dawson plays the Times reporter (and potential love interest) and their tete-a-tete ranges all over the place, covering alcoholism/sobriety, film criticism, reality TV vs. reality, and more.  There are some “blue” moments (as in sexually explicit) and there is some raw language (no surprise) – but the general tone is affectionate and sensitive.  The movie mostly succeeds as it ambles amiably along but it feels like we have been here before.   

A Shot in the Dark (1964)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

A Shot in the Dark (1964) – B. Edwards

Peter Sellers is back as Inspector Clouseau in this sequel to The Pink Panther that now revolves around him.  He is called in to solve a murder in the mansion of rich George Sanders, presumably committed by Elke Sommer who is caught more-or-less red-handed.  However, Clouseau believes she is innocent, probably for no good reason.  As you would expect, there is heaps of slapstick and awkward moments.  Burt Kwouk plays Clouseau’s butler, ready to attack him (for training purposes) at any moment.  Herbert Lom is Commissioner Dreyfus, Clouseau’s commanding officer, cracking up with every Clouseau accident that occurs but unable to bring himself to remove Clouseau from the case.  Although there is a mystery plot – and all the suspects are brought together into one room at the end for Clouseau to announce the murderer – there is actually no real plot to speak of.  Instead, we just get some great set-ups for laughs (particularly, the nudist colony scene), where perhaps my anticipation sometimes outweighed the actual jokes.  Still this is better than the first film.

Twins of Evil (1971)

☆ ☆ ½

Twins of Evil (1971) – J. Hough

70’s Hammer film that sees Peter Cushing still chasing vampires – only this time he is a puritanical witchfinder who burns poor women at the stake when they are suspected of evil.  Unfortunately for him, he is soon visited by twin nieces who attract the attention of the wicked Count Karnstein.  Naturally, before long, one of them is a vampire and Cushing must defeat the correct twin without getting confused.  Although decked out in the usual Hammer atmospherics, the film plods a bit, leers a lot, and doesn’t really seem exciting or even scary until the final minutes when the vampires are dispatched.  Kathleen Byron (a favorite of Powell and Pressburger’s) is here in a support role as Cushing’s wife, doing her best to maintain her dignity. Probably not worth your time when there is much better Hammer horror out there.

Police Tactics (1974)

☆ ☆ ☆

Police Tactics (1974) – K. Fukasaku

More of the same in the 4^th film in Kinji Fukasaku’s five film Yakuza Papers series – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  At this point in the program, the narrated exposition at the start of the film is pretty long and it only just manages to detail the characters and action from Proxy War (the third film).  It might come as no surprise that, although some of the main yakuza bosses are back (primarily cool Bunta Sugawara as Hirono but also his rivals Takeda, Yamamori and Uchimoto), they sometimes get lost among the violent antics of the younger generation of yakuza and by the end of the film they are all sidelined.  It’s hard to keep the betrayals straight. One wonders what will happen in the 5^th and final film, when everyone’s in jail. Fukasaku maintains the same punchy style here, syncopated with freeze frames and horns.  When yakuza die, we finally find out their names and which family they belonged to in a flash of onscreen text.  If any of this is a true story, Hiroshima couldn’t have been a safe place to live.  Not the place to start the series, naturally. 

  

Illegal (1955)

☆ ☆ ☆

Illegal (1955) – L. Allen

With his charisma alone, Edward G. Robinson holds this film together despite the presence of a few familiar faces (Jayne Mansfield, Edward Platt, Albert Dekker). Apparently he was on the B-List after his run-in with HUAC and therefore relegated to some florid fare.  Nevertheless, the film is pretty enjoyable, as Robinson turns from the winningest D. A. in history to mob mouthpiece after accidentally convicting an innocent man.  He resorts to some excellent shock tactics in the courtroom.  But of course, things eventually turn sour and he’s stuck in the middle when his ex-aide is arrested for murder and the only way to save her is to betray the gang.  Not the cream of the noir crop but it ain’t bad either.