A Gunman Has Escaped (1948)
Thank God this was under an hour long, and so I only watched it to see just how much worse it could get. The plot was shit, the acting abysmal and.............well the whole thing was dire and I was glad when it finished.
I half recognised one of the gang, but the rest seemed to me a group shoved together from a local am-dram company, borne out by the fact that none of them had flourishing acting careers.
Nuff said.
Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 28th August 2020, 6:13 AMPark Plaza 605 (1953)Read on.............
Not a bad film, played tongue in cheek with Sid James as the police detective (Wha!?), Richard Wattis as a dodgy orchid importer, Terence Alexander as the hotel manager, Eva Bartok as the femme fatale, a short lived part for everyone's favourite "German" Anton Diffring and there's our friend Michael Balfour in his usual guise as a gang heavy.
Norman is a bit too slick for my liking (think Roger Moore in The Saint), BUT THE STAR for me is THE CAR!!
I recognised the BMW logo on the wheel caps and should have twigged what it was, as Dinky made a similar Frazer Nash-BMW No. 38a, which I had in my collection until I sold them all on eBay.
Fortunately, someone on the IMDb recognised it as a 1952 Frazer Nash Targa Florio - one of only 14 built, with the last one selling for over £250,000. Looks even more impressive in the film!
On again 6am Thursday morning (22 October).
Quote: Billy Bunter @ 19th October 2020, 10:19 AMOn again 6am Thursday morning (22 October).
Worth a look, if only for the car. 
Salute the Toff (1952) Yank title Brighthaven Express
Second rate film about (yawn) super rich renowned private eye/author (not sure as I lost interest) investigates a murder where the body is a mystery as it was in a flat that was owned by somebody else - with me so far? Good, 'cos I'm lost already. Messy plot of shady dealing in the business world is behind it all apparently and more bodies ensue. What was memorable was the enormous (!!), what I think was a Bentley Mk VI, he drove round in.
John Bentley again as the suave solver, along with Valentine Dyall as the Police Inspector and Wally Patch as local landlord/pugilist who helps out with his gang of angelic ruffians. Oh, and a barely recognisable Tony Britton.
Thank God it was a short B movie film filler.
The Steel Key (1953)
Terence Morgan the baddie usually, is a not-so-baddie in this one. He still sails close to the wind and commands police attention when he arrives in the UK from The States.
Posing as a scientist who develops a formula for some sort of super steel he tries to find out where the now missing formula and the scientist's partner in the development has disappeared to. He finds out quite soon what happened to him when he sees his funeral taking place..............or was it. And so, a convoluted but interesting plot develops with various people putting up fronts to disguise some dodgy goings on, while in the meantime the police are still on his tail as the bodies mount up. Now he has to be even more careful in keeping ahead of the police as he pursues this magic missing formula which now has a high reward on it for its safe return.
I enjoyed it and noticed that he was driving around in the same monster Bentley Mk VI used in the previous year's "Salute the Toff" ( see previous review), but with a different number plate.
Esma Cannon has a minor part as a nutty little old lady (nothing new there then) and we have a "doubler" as Michael Balfour AND Sam Kydd make an appearance, although this time Kydd is a 'tachioed nasty piece of work.
Good thriller.
The Monkey's Paw (1948)
One of many versions of this famous story and one I read at school many (!) years ago, of the "magic" monkey's paw that carries with it three wishes, BUT "wisher" beware of what you wish for!!
Megs Jenkins plays the unfortunate mother and the only other faces I knew were Sydney Tafler as the antiques trader and in this version Alfie Bass as a speedway promoter, where the son comes a cropper in his first race - in the original story the son gets horribly chopped up in a farm thresher. No spoiler there as that is only leading up to the horror end of the story.
It is a fairly short story that is dragged out a bit too long in this film (just over an hour, that seemed longer!), but nonetheless worth watching, especially if you don't know the end.
My mother met Megs Jenkins in the street once and started chatting to her like an old friend.She was such a familiar sight on Welsh TV at one time.She was very polite about it but my mother could never watch her again without cringing with embarrassment.
She retired, lived and died in my neck of the woods in Suffolk, where I think she ran a small hotel in Felixstowe.
Man on the Run (1949)
Good film. Apparently, there were an estimated 20,000 deserters at the end of the war, all on the run and turning to crime to live - I didn't know that.
So, this one man (Derek Farr, who I've seen in a number of films and a good actor) has made a new life for himself working in pub in the middle of nowhere and everything is fine until by chance one of his old army "chums" (Kenneth More) wanders into the pub, recognises him and, he too being short of the readies, decides to blackmail Farr.
Farr legs it over night and the only thing he has to his name to sell and make some money is his old Army issue revolver, which he goes to pawn; BUT, as he goes to offer it to the pawnbroker, to masked men enter the shop, also with guns and beat the shopkeeper unconscious when he presses the alarm button. They leave the shop, leaving Farr now in an invidious position, so he legs it too just before the police arrive. To make matter worse, the two real robbers shoot and kill a police motorcyclist, so now a massive manhunt is on the way as the police of course don't look too kindly to someone killing one of their own.
On recovering, the pawnbroker says that three men held him up and of course Farr was the only one he could identify because he didn't have a mask on, being an innocent bystander so to speak, but as far as the police are concerned, he is one of the robbers.
Farr then nearly gets caught, but manages to barge his way into a woman's house who takes pity on him and between them they not only try and avoid the police but try and trace one of the robbers who had an Australian accent and two fingers missing on his left hand....................and so a thrilling double pursuit ensues.
Mr Grimsdale!! (Edward Chapman) is the police inspector in charge of the case/chase with Laurence Harvey (!) as his detective sergeant. Loads of bit parts for the likes of Alfie Bass, Eleanor Summerfield, Valentine Dyall, Charles Lloyd Pack (Trigger's dad) and there very briefly but unmistakable Arthur Mullard as one of the drinkers in the crowded pub, where the film concludes.
Yes, well worth a watch.
The Ghost Camera (1933)
Very early film for John Mills and the main reason I watched it, being a fan of his.
Very dated of course and I think this is screaming out for a remake as the story is basically sound as a thriller with murder thrown in.
At just over an hour long it was worth watching, even if those terribly, terribly stilted voices were amusing if not grating.
The main female part was played by the absolutely gorgeous Ida Lupino and there was a small part for Felix Aylmer - the rest of the cast I didn't know.
The camera in question is one that falls on the back seat of a car accidentally and on developing the film, one picture is of a murder and so the quest is on to find out via the other prints, where and when.
The Root of All Evil (1947)
Really good film about a woman (Phyllis Calvert) whose poor farmer father is made bankrupt and to add to the misery, she is jilted and she swears never to trust a man again, then sets out to ruin the man who went off to marry his cousin instead of her and his domineering father who set his son against her.
After suing him for breach of promise, she uses the money to set up a rival superior shop dead opposite the father and son, then becomes a successful investor on the stock market, THEN buys a plot of derelict land off a poor farmer after being persuaded by (Michael Rennie) that there's oil in them thar hills (Really? In England?). Anyway, they do find oil and the money rolls in but she misreads Rennie's intentions as she thinks he's in love with her too, but he isn't because he doesn't like the money grabbing bitch she has become.
The poor farmer she duped out of his farm sets fire to the oil plant and destroys it, Michael Rennie had already legged it and she has a reality check realising what a horrible person she'd become. She goes back to the old farm her father lost and finds that their farm hand had taken it over, a person (John McCallum) who'd loved her from afar and now she realises he is the man she truly loved all those years ago when they were poor. (Sob)
The gorgeous Hazel Court plays her younger sister, who is the opposite of her, and Rennie drives a fabulous Jaguar SS100 - the first one I'd seen in a film.
Also Moore Marriott had a part in it, but I have to confess I didn't recognise him - he can scrub up well when he's not Will Hay's toothless stooge, and Michael Medwin was, according to the IMDb, Minor Role (uncredited), but again I didn't notice him.
Certainly, worth a view.
Private Information (1952)
Widow living with daughter and son on new council estate (would love to know where it was) that has been built on the cheap, especially the drains, and when she exposes this at a council meeting she causes a furore with the mayor who is her brother in law and the borough planner whose daughter is to marry her son, who also happens to work in the planning department and where she got her private information from re the shoddy materials and labour.
She is hounded by all concerned and her only hope, with the encouragement of local newspaper reporter is to face it out and let them sue her for slander. She is doubtful as she has been threatened also with losing her council house and her son losing his job; BUT THEN her daughter is taken very ill with typhoid from drinking the tap water that has been contaminated by the dodgy drains, and all hell is let loose.............
Apparently rated as one of the best B movies ever, and I have to agree. Sounds like it might be a mundane subject, but makes for a good film.
The only people I recognised were Jack Watling and Brenda de Banzie - from the superb "Too Many Crooks", amongst others.
The Last Man to Hang (1956)
This has caused some wailing and gnashing of teeth on the IMDb because the big twist at the end also has a big hole in it (I won't elucidate here for fear of spoilers), and my knee jerk reaction was to agree, but on reflection I think it is feasible and makes for a good murder mystery with the debatable twist at the end.
We see Errol Fynn lookalike lothario Tom Conway (George Sanders' elder brother, who I've reviewed before in his guise as The Falcon PI in one of those films ) arrested for the murder of his wife as he tries to leave the UK with his latest flame, and then ensues a court room drama with flashbacks to establish what had happened - the whole thing revolving around him saying at his arrest "I killed her" or I've killed her", whatever he is quite open and admits that it was he who killed his wife.
I'm not a fan of court room dramas, but this one was OK and the jury was made from the likes of Victor Maddern and Tony Newley who all had back stories that were similar to things that coincidentally happened to Tom Conway. There were also parts for Joan Hickson, Raymond Huntley, Conrad Phillips (William Tell TV series), Charles Lloyd Pack (Trigger's dad) and a surprise appearance by John Schlesinger.
The big debate at the time was the abolition of capital (hanging) punishment and a number of films were made around this period on the subject, but that doesn't intrude. I can see why reviewers are not happy with this film and maybe the end should have been given more consideration or tidied up, but I still think it holds up well.
The Frightened Man (1952)
Very good though stock jewel robbery film from a safe and I'm not sure who was supposed to be the frightened man as all concerned seemed to have something to worry about.
Son sent down from Oxford comes home to iffy father who runs a none too salubrious antique shop and refuses to join his father in the biz as he has bigger plans i.e. robbery of some sort. Unbeknown to him, every male part in the film is linked in a dodgy business of some sort and linked by a thin thread.
The police have been following this gang for some time, waiting to for a link and arrest them - the son proves to be that catalyst. The police inspector is non other than the Major (Ballard Berkeley) from Fawlty Towers who I'd seen in a similar part in another film, and as the film winds up post robbery, the father and son climb to the top of the building to escape capture (ooer, I wonder what happens now?).................yes, one of them falls off - well I never!
Other faces are Thora Hird, who I recognised by her voice more than visual (!), John Blythe who often played small time crooks, as he did here, Barbara Murray as the son's love interest, who finishes the film crying her eyes out and the blonde gangsters tart/moll was an attractive girl Annette D. Simmonds who I hadn't seen before and it seems this was her last (of a few) film before she died aged only 42.
Another actor who was in this and I think deserves a mention, is Michael Ward. You won't know the name, but would certainly have seen him in a film at some point - he always played (as he did in this one) a very effete man who often worked in a ladies' dress shop, or was a window dresser, or a photographer. (think Norman Wisdom films for example) He certainly made a successful career playing this type of part. You know............yes, him!
I looked up his photo and it was who I imagined.Apparently he was in quite a few Carry Ons too.
