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The degradation and mocking of anyone not Euro-American continues. The handful of Arab camel herders are draped in unrepresentative stereotypical funny colorful robes and headdresses. They are portrayed as non-pork eating weaklings. The are referred to as monkeys. They are shown in prayer, whose movements and words are of a kind of which doesn't exist in Islam. In the early 1950s there existed Arab communities throughout California. The producers never bothered to pull in an advisor from the Arab-America community.

Finally, Arabian camels are one hump camels not two hump camels.

Must also mention that the heroine goes through thick and thin, but continues to appear with lipstick, makeup, clean clothes and a hairdo.

A Filipino psychological horror drama.

A class of college students are given an assignment to learn about the 1972-1981 martial law in the Philippines, by talking to people who lived through it.

Carlo (Tony Labrusca) Goes to the home of a senior citizen and retired colonel (played by Eddie Garcia) who was an officer during the martial law period.

Carlo's visit to the retired colonel's home triggered an insane reaction from the latter, who is apparently troubled by his experiences during the martial law when he tortured captured activists.

Carlo is detained in the basement of the colonel's house, where the colonel subjects him to severe torture. Carlo's girlfriend and one of his classmates are also subsequently drawn into the basement trap of horrors.

The film is a quality production. The acting was excellent.

The movie shows brutal scenes of violence as it attempts to portray human rights abuses during martial law.

The movie is currently rated a high 7.9 on IMDb. The movie picked up 2 Balanghai Trophies for Best Actor (Garcia) 1 FAMAS Award for Best Actor (Garcia), 1 Star Award for Sound Engineering, and 1 Gawad Award for Best Actor.

Eddie Garcia was 74 years old when he starred in this film. He passed away a year later, in 2019.

Independently-produced B horror film based on a 1908 story with the same name, by Francis Marion Crawford.

The movie is a mixture of a sophisticated murder plot and ghostly apparitions.

A man, Eric, brings his second wealthy wife, Jenni, to the estate where his first wife, Marion, had drowned in a lily pond on the grounds, in a freak accident. The estate grounds are under the care of Mickey, a mentally-challenged young man with a limp. Mickey had been very fond of Marion.

We learn that Jenni had spent time in a mental institution after helplessly witnessing, as a child, the drowning of her parents.

Eric has nefarious intentions. He carefully sets up scenarios to mentally break Jenni by having her believe that Marion is haunting her. Eric's dark schemes involve sightings of a skull and screams during the night.

As matters climax, the supernatural steps in, as Marion's ghost appears to save Jenni.

Mickey is played by the film's director, Alex Nicol. The entire cast, including Nicol, is 5.

In our horror movies review series, we have now seen giant crabs 🦀, giant grasshoppers, a giant gila monster 🦎, a giant bat 🦇, a giant amoeba, giant leeches, giant shrews, and giant ants, giant triffids, and now a screaming skull 💀.

This film is currently rated a poor 3.9 on IMDb. I give it a fair rating of 5. The reason for this upgrade is that the movie is successfully suspenseful and much like a film noire, the audience will constantly be trying to work out who is bad and who is good. Not bad for a 68-minute-long feature. It is on YouTube.

British sci fi horror film loosely based on the 1951 novel of the same name by John Wyndham (3 posts back).

This time the giant killers are triffids, fictional tall carnivorous plants that are capable of locomotion.

To keep track, so far I have reviewed movies about giant crabs 🦀, giant grasshoppers, a giant gila monster 🦎, a giant bat 🦇, a giant amoeba, giant leeches, giant shrews, and giant ants.

This film is currently rated a fairly good 6.1 on IMDb. It is on YouTube.

The glare from a massive meteor shower blinds most people in the world and at the same time spreads triffid plant spores which become animated. Bill Masen, a merchant navy officer had been lying in hospital during the meteor shower, with his eyes bandaged, so is unaffected and leaves the next day. London is in total disarray with the blind stumbling all over the place.

At a railway station, he comes across a schoolgirl named Susan who, having not witnessed the meteor shower, is also not blind.

They make their way to reach his ship. Along the way they have close calls with menacing triffids.

Meanwhile, in a parallel subplot, a scientist and lighthouse keeper and his wife, are trapped in a lighthouse and have to battle off triffids that are trying to break into the lighthouse. I won't spoil the outcome of the battle for the lighthouse.

Masen and Susan finally make it to the dockyard, but travel on to France to a chateau which is serving as a refuge to the blind. Acquiring supplies from a nearby grocery store is hazardous. The chateau itself is eventually invaded by triffids.

Marsen, Susan and a woman, manage to get away and make for a submarine base in southern Spain. They hope to get evacuated from mainland Europe in a submarine. Submariners who were underwater during the meteor shower were not blinded.

The movie is action-packed and creates suspense throughout. It is one of the earlier post-apocalyptic movies, and thus gained popularity at the box office.

Liway (2019)

A biographical film written and directed by Kip Oebanda, who was born, and spent his first years, in a detention camp that housed NPA (New People's Army) rebels, during the last few years of the Marcos regime.

Kip was born in Camp Delgado to captured rebel leader Commander Liway and her captured husband, Commander Toto. The story is told from Kip's perspective.

Commander Liway was played to perfection by Glaiza de Castro. Young Kip was played by child actor Kenken Nuyad.

Riveting and touching drama. Highly recommended. The movie is currently rated a high 8.3 on IMDb. The movie picked up 3 FAP Awards for Best Actress, Screenplay, and Editing. It picked up another 3 awards at the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival. Kenken Nuyad won a Star Award for Best Child Performer.

Unlike most of the giant killer animal 1-hour long independently-produced B movies of the 1950s, this one was produced by Warner Bros. And is 94 minutes long.

This time it's giant killer ants that end up attacking Los Angeles.

To keep track, so far we've had giant crabs 🦀, giant grasshoppers, a giant gila monster 🦎, a giant bat 🦇, a giant amoeba, giant leeches, giant shrews, and now giant ants.

But this one does stand apart from the others, because of Warner Bros. And its superior resources. In fact, this movie was a box office sensation. It is currently rated a good 7.2 on IMDb.

Good performances by James Whitmore and James Arness (Marshal Dillon in the classic 1955-1975 TV series "Gunsmoke"). Fess Parker, who in 1955 would star in the TV series "Davy Crockett", had a secondary role in the film. Leonard Nimoy, Spock of Star Trek fame, has a small, uncredited role as an Army sergeant in the communications room.

A nest of ants is mutated by the first A-bomb test in the New Mexico desert near Alamogordo. When attacked by the military, two queen ants escape to Los Angeles, where they seek shelter in the city's spillways and storm drain system. With them are two young children captives. The movie culminates in a big underground battle between the giant ants and the good guys.

The special effects and sets were well done. Three 12-foot ants were built for the film. Close-up shots of real animals were also used. The sounds the giant ants emit in the film were the calls of tree frogs mixed in with the calls of a wood thrush, a warbler, and a woodpecker.

A 69-minute b&w sci fi horror B-movie, This time its giant killer shrews on an isolated island. To keep track, so far we've had giant crabs 🦀, giant grasshoppers, a giant Gila monster 🦎, a giant bat 🦇, a giant amoeba, giant leeches, and now giant shrews.

A boat captain and his aide deliver supplies to a research professor, his two assistants, his daughter and a male servant, who run a research center from an adobe house on an otherwise isolated island. A hurricane is also approaching the island, so the captain and his assistant are invited to stay the night. The three scientists are conducting experiments to shrink small shrews to see if it will increase their life spans. The experiments go awry and the opposite happens. The shrews grow to the size of dogs and turn on anything edible on the island with voracious appetites. After consuming most of animal life forms on the island, they turn on the group of humans on the island, who barricade themselves in the house. Attrition between the besiegers and the besieged gradually takes its toll until only a few survivors remain, including the captain and the professor's daughter, who have fallen for one another.

Dogs dressed in strips of shag carpeting with long tails portrayed the giant killer shrews. Close-ups of the shrews were filmed using hand puppets.

The movie was produced with a budget of $123,000 by the same producer of the 1959 "The Giant Gila Monster", which is rated a 3.6 on IMDb. So I feared the worse But, I was pleasantly surprised. I actually liked this film. It is suspenseful, a little scary (twice I genuinely jumped), and unpredictable to a large extent. It is currently rated 4.1 on IMDb. I rated it a 7. It isn't in the class of "The Blob" or "Them", but it is certainly much better than many of the giant killer animals horror B flicks of the 1950s. It is on YouTube.

The Haunted Castle (1897) or Le Chateux Hante

Georges Melies produced this 45-second-long silent short movie as a condensed remake of his 1896 "The Devil's Castle".

In this remake, two men enter an antechamber in a castle; one offers a chair to the other and then exits. The remaining man is dressed in red. He attempts to sit down, but the chair moves away from him, and he falls to the ground. When the man re-approaches the chair, it turns into a ghost, then into a skeleton, and then into an armored knight; before it disappears. Turning, the man finds himself confronted by the Devil. He attempts to escape, but a ghost blocks his way.

It appears that Melies used the same set that was used in his 1896 short.

The film was painstakingly colored by hand.

This movie is currently rated a good 6.3 on IMDb. I rated it a 7. It is on YouTube.

This short silent movie may be the first ever horror film.

In a little over three minutes, French director and actor, George's Melies (1861-1938), introduces several key elements that became everlasting ingredients of horror movies, especially of the vampire subgenre.

There is only one movie set made for the film. It was built in Melies's garden, out of painted cardboard, and depicts a castle antechamber ending in an open window.

A giant bat flys through the window into the antechamber, and flies around before changing into Mephistopheles (fictional character representing the spirit of the Devil). Mephistopheles produces a cauldron and a dwarf with a large book, who helps him conjure a beautiful woman from the cauldron.

The hall clears as two gentlemen enter. The dwarf pokes their backs before teleporting around the room, causing one to flee. The second stays and has several other tricks played on him, such as furniture moving around and the sudden appearance of a skeleton where he had started to sit. He attacks the skeleton with his sword, but the skeleton turns into a bat, then into Mephistopheles, who now conjures four witches or ghosts draped in white, to subdue the man. Recovering from the attack, the man is attracted to the woman from the cauldron, but Mephistopheles turns her into an old hag, then again into the four witches.

The second man reappears, but soon flees again by leaping out of the window. After the four ghosts disappear, the man is confronted by the Mephistopheles, but the man brandishes a large crucifix, which causes the Devil to vanish in a puff of smoke.

The rapid appearances and disappearances of the different characters and elements in the film was achieved by stopping and restarting the film (jump cuts), i.e. Early editing. Fast-moving action is thus crammed into this short film.

The film was lost, but rediscovered in a junkyard purchase in New Zealand in 1988.

The world's first horror movie or a comedy?

This 1-minute-long film produced and performed by the brilliant French movie pioneer, Georges Melies (1861-1938), may be the first horror movie.

There are indications that this movie was actually meant to be a comical sketch (it was cataloged as such), but that it slid on its own accord into the horror category. How so?

Well, it features a confrontation between a man getting into bed to sleep, and an enormous cockroach-like insect that climbs up his sheets. A battle ensues as the man deploys a broom to subdue the insect, which tries to escape the onslaught by crawling up a wall. The victorious man manually deposits the dead insect in a chamber pot, which is put away in his nightstand. But, it is not over. The man continues to battle unseen insects on his bed. Did the large insect hatch eggs on the bed, or did it have a mass following of little ones?

Perhaps the movie was intended as a comedy, however, many of us are horrified by the thought of crawlers near us, much less on our beds, much less giant crawlers on our bed. It is understandable why many researchers prefer to characterize this movie as perhaps the first horror movie, and a forerunner of the horror subgenre of the giant killer bug films of the 1950s.

You decide whether it makes you laugh or if it horrifies you. It's on YouTube. It is currently rated a fairly good 5.8 on IMDb. I gave it a solid 7.0 for its wit. In fact, this 1-minute film may deserve an 8. What do you give it?

A b&w sci fi horror B movie.

A radioactive object on the sea floor emits a radiation upwards towards the surface. The radiation destroys and kills anything that passes over it. A professor from a coastal research college knows about it. A research oceanographer and the professor's secretary are plotting to sell the object and the associated technology to a foreign power. The Feds independently dispatch two agents to get to the bottom of things. One of these agents is a famous scientist who also falls for the professor's daughter.

I haven't gotten to the monster yet. Well, it actually doesn't appear that much in the movie. The monster is an ugly anthropomorphic creature that stays in the sea standing guard over the object, and surfaces occasionally to feed on the ray's victims. The creature's costume is not bad. It falls in the class of the costume used in the "Creature from the Black Lagoon ".

The movie is basically an espionage story with a monster. Two good ingredients to have, aside from the standard romantic subplot.

The problem with this movie is that it drags. Too much talking. Not enough monster-based horror. At 81 minutes long, It gets a bit boring. The producer should have stuck with the usual 60-70 minutes film length.

It currently scores a 3.6 on IMDb. I gave it a 4. Available on YouTube.

Another b&w sci fi horror B-movie, This time its giant killer leeches in a Florida nature reserve swamp. This time around, the mutation is caused by radiation from the Cape Canaveral rocket-launching site.

To keep track, so far we've had giant crabs 🦀, giant grasshoppers, a giant Gila monster 🦎, a giant bat 🦇, a giant amoeba, and now giant leeches.

The lead actors portrays a young peace officer who is responsible for the nature reserve's preservation, and his sweetheart. When bodies show up drained of blood, and with suction marks on their necks, our hero and his girlfriend feel that something is out of the ordinary. Naturally, the sheriff and other townsfolk are skeptical. The narrative includes a neat subplot revolving around the flirting wife of the local grocer.

This is an above par horror for period B-movies. What first caught my attention was the convincing performance of all the actors. When that happens, it usually reflects good directing.

The sets, including the swamp, are great for a B-movie; as well as the costumes and props.

A couple of cringe scenes are where the leeches store their live human victims in an underwater cave, where they periodically return to visit them to suck out more blood.

The giant leech costume was quite good. It was made of raincoat-type material. The man-sized creatures has several appendages including two that seemed to act like arms. The appendages were lined with octopi-type suckers. The thickest appendage had a large round mouth, or sucker, near its end, with concentric circles of sharp teeth.

The movie was filmed in 8 days on a $70,000 budget.

This movie is currently rated 3.7 on IMDb. I give it a solid 6. It is on YouTube.

Another b&w sci fi horror B-movie, This time around the giant killer animal is a microscopic single-celled amoeba that has overgrown into what resembles a one-eyed octopus. As you may have guessed, the mutation is caused by seeped radiation from an underwater A-bomb test, albeit almost 10,000 km away.

To keep track, so far we've had giant crabs 🦀, giant grasshoppers, a giant Gila monster 🦎, a giant bat 🦇, and a giant amoeba.

As in most such movies, at the center of the action is a pretty blonde woman and a handsome young scientist who fall for each other. In this case, the woman is an American vacationer at an isolated beach 🏝 in Mexico 🇲🇽. The man is an American marine biologist whom, with a colleague, is studying🔬marine life offshore from aboard a small research vessel.

In the waters of a cove that harbors the beach lurks the octopus-like monster. Some locals believe in its existence, but the scientists don't. Our heroine is curious and brazen and begins to dive into deeper waters to investigate.

The movie started off quite well and suspenseful. I started sensing a 5.0 rating. But, half-way through, the production falls flat on its face. The monster surfaces at full moon to snatch a stray cow off the beach. Our heroine sees it and faints but still manages to acquire a scrap of its flesh. The scientists will later become believers when they view a sample from the scrap under the ever-present microscope; and in less than a minute, everything becomes obvious.

It is widely believed that the movie was filmed in 6 days at a budget that may have been as low as $12,000. This may be a key reason why the movie sits with a poor 3.8 rating on IMDb. I couldn't give it anything higher than a 3. It is on YouTube.

I should note, that the movie showcased a single-operator electric submersible built at the time by Aerojet General for the U. S. Navy.

Another b&w sci fi horror B movie, This time around the giant killer animal is a bat. To keep track, so far we've had giant crabs 🦀, giant grasshoppers, a giant Gila monster 🦎, and now a giant bat 🦇.

What makes this film somewhat different from the other three, is that it stars Bela Lugosi, one of the four pillars of horror movies; the others being Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, and Peter Cushing.

The plot is simple. Lugosi is a mad scientist in a cosmetic company. His concoctions have enriched the company owners, while he must do with an occasional bonus. This doesn't sit well with him and he sets out to take revenge on the family members. In his secret lab, he creates a giant bat and trains it to slash away at a shaving lotion scent that he concocted. As the bodies fall, a journalist and his photographer come to town to cover the story and solve the mystery. I shall not say more in case one of you wishes to watch it on YouTube.

Not a bad way to spend an hour of entertainment. Lugosi does add a special mystique to his movies. He is a lot of fun to watch. Special effects are not bad. At least they are not flimsy.

The film is currently rated a fair 5.4 on IMDb. I give it a 6.0, albeit with some hesitation.

Another b&w sci fi horror B movie, made at a cost of only $175K.

This time around the giant killer animal is a Gila Monster. To keep track, so far we've had giant crabs, giant grasshoppers, and now a giant gila monster.

The setting is rural Texas where a giant killer gila monster is smashing cars along the roads leading into a small town, and devouring their occupants. It even derails a train. The monster builds up an appetite and by the end of the movie attempts to break into a barn rock hop party.

Quite a flimsy production. The Gila monster attacks on cars are before and after shots. We never see the actual attack. The train in the train wreck scene clearly looks like a toy train that is being drawn off its toy tracks. We are reminded of the monster by a sequence of separate close-up shots of a lizard crawling along. In fact, a Mexican Beaded Lizard was used instead of a Gila Monster. The movie ends with the leading man putting an end to the killer monster in a very implausible way.

The movie's male lead is Don Sullivan who also starred in the 1959 B horror "The Monster of Piedras Blancas". His female co-star is the French actress Lisa Simone who was Miss France 1957. The executive producer of the film, Gordon McLendon, was a wealthy Texan who owned several radio stations. McLendon saw to it that one of his rock disc jockeys was written into the script. We get to hear two or three catchy rock songs in the film.

The movie is currently rated 3.6 on IMDb. Available on YouTube including a colorized version.

Another b&w sci fi horror movie. This one was an ultra-low B movie made at a cost of only $30K. This movie departed from giant killer animals that we can relate to, to some sort of anthropomorphic killer reptilian monster, ala the 1954 "Creature from the Black Lagoon". In fact, the film was heavily influenced by the "Creature from the Black Lagoon".

Not a bad movie at all. Initially I rated it as a 5.0, but over several days it grew on me, and I now recognize it as a 6.0; which is the highest I have yet to award a movie of this horror subgenre. On IMDB it is currently rated 5.3.

In a small California seaside town, the lighthouse keeper (excellently portrayed by John Harmon), has for ten years kept a dangerous secret. For ten years, he has been leaving meat scraps for a monster who lives in a shoreline cliff cave. Concerned for the safety of his only daughter, he had sent her off to boarding school for ten years. She is now 19 and back living in the lighthouse with her widower dad. Her boyfriend is a young marine scientist. The monster soon takes to the taste of human blood, starting a series of unexplained gruesome deaths. The townsfolk decide to take matters in their own hands. I won't spoil the movie for those who wish to watch it on YouTube.

This time around atomic radiation is not blamed for the monsters existence. He just appears. But, as in most of these movies, one sexy woman and a young handsome scientist are there to save the world. It's amazing how the scientist hero with the help of a microscope and a few chemicals, discovers what's going on and how to stop it, in a matter of hours.

One major flaw in the storyline is that the frightened residents of the town never call on State authorities after they actually see the monster and start mourning their dead.

Another b&w sci fi horror movie. In my last movie post, humankind's manipulation of atomic power created giant killer crabs 🦀 that are attacking an isolated group of people on a dessert island. In this film we accidentally create giant killer grasshoppers. But, this time around, the giant grasshoppers are attacking Chicago.

As in most of these movies, one sexy woman and a young scientist are there to save the world. It's amazing how the scientist hero with the help of a microscope and a few chemicals, discovers what's going on and how to stop it, in a matter of hours.

This grasshopper movie was made on a $300K budget, 4 times as much as was spent on the crab movie. It is, in my opinion, a better production. I rate it a 3, nearly 4 times better than the 1 rating I bestowed upon the crabs. I guess it mattered how much money you threw at these productions. It is currently rated a poor 3.9 on IMDb.

Peter Graves (brother of James Arness, star of the long-running classic TV series, "Gunsmoke") is the lead male star. He was an accomplished actor and did a good job under the circumstances.

The female lead played the role of a news wire reporter. In her Chevy convertible she has a mobile telephone apparatus, an ancestor of our cellphones. The first car-based mobile set I ever saw was 30 years later and it was such a novelty that its owner took me on a long cruise to show it off.

Minsa'y Isang Gamu-gamo or Once A Moth (1976)

A Filipino drama that concerns a Filipina nurse, Cora de la Cruz (played by Nora Aunor), who is preparing to move to the U. S. Cora's boyfriend seeks to gain a U. S. green card by joining the U. S. Navy.

The events of the movie take place in 1969, near the U. S. Clark Air Base in Pampanga, where the surrounding local communities benefit from the U. S. military presence in more than one way. One such way is by children running onto a restricted bombing and strafing practice range to collect scrap metal. The base also employs locals in various services support jobs.

Cora's boyfriend's mother works at the base's PX and one day is strip-searched and degraded by a Filipina PX security guard as she ends her shift.

Even worse, Cora's kid brother is shot dead by an American guard when he joins other kids on a metal-collecting run inside the restricted bombing range. This tragic incident occurs as the family is preparing for a feast to celebrate Cora's impending departure to America.

The film is strongly critical of the American military presence in the Philippines and the failure of the Philippine judiciary to provide justice to locals seeking justice from actions involving the base. The film won two awards at the Metro Manila Film Festival and five FAMAS Awards, including those for best picture, director, and screenplay.

The film was discovered a few years ago in bad shape in an abandoned warehouse. The film had dust, debris, scratches, color stains, mold, fungus and splice marks. It flickered, had bumps, suffered from color breathing and destabilization, and much more. It took 3,500 hours of restoration. It is fully restored since 2018 and is now on YouTube with English subtitles.

A b&w crime caper starring George Sanders, Richard Johnson, and several leading Egyptian movie stars, including Faten Hamama, Ahmed Mazhar, Kamal El Shinawi, Shwikar, Salah Nazmi, Nahed Sabri, Ezzat El Alaili, Yousuf Shaaban, and Said Abu Bakr.

Sanders is a British thief who comes to Cairo to recruit and lead an international team of villains to rob a collection of King Tut jewels from the Cairo Museum. The team includes a Brit lock-busting expert who has settled in Cairo and married a local girl; a Greek underground gambling-joint operator, a Turkish import/export businessman, an Egyptian driver, and an young Egyptian hashish addict.

Each character on the team is attached to a subplot.

Not a bad production. Filming took place in Cairo. Rewarding scenes from bazaars, marketplaces, cabarets, inner city streets; as well as rural scenery. Some claim that the film is a nearly scene-by-scene remake of John Huston's "The Asphalt Jungle". Available on YouTube. Rated a weak to fair 5.4 on IMDb.

An Egyptian b&w drama by the acclaimed Egyptian actor/producer/director, Youssef Chahine. The film is listed as the 2nd from the top of the list of the "Top 100 Egyptian films of the 20th Century".

The events of the movie are set in the Cairo Train Station and it concerns the subculture of station men and women who haul luggage and sell refreshments and periodicals to travelers, and operate out of shacks and abandoned old railroad cars. Chahine is Kinawi, a mentally unstable and lame newspaper seller that has a wild psychosexual obsession with illegal cold drinks vendor, Hanouma (played by Hind Rostom). Hanouma is engaged to Abou Seri' (played by Faris Shawqi) a porter and trade union organiser. The story includes a murder.

The film was entered in the Berlin International Festival, and as the Egyptian entry for the Best Foreign Film Language Film at the Academy Awards.

The film has been hailed by international movie watchers as a masterpiece in the style of neorealist cinema. Themes depicted in the film include the urban working class, gender-based violence, and sexual repression, and Union issues.

Chahine plays Kinawai's role to perfection. Excellent acting. Chahine also directed the movie.

It is worth watching the film to see Chahine's performance.

The film is on YouTube where it includes English subtitles.

The 8th of 16 Charlie Chan films starring Warner Oland in the title role.

Chan is a Chinese detective ala "Sherlock Holmes"; the brainchild of 6 books and subsequent articles by Earl Derr Biggers (1884-1933).

The film is only 72 minutes long. In this film, Chan is sent to Egypt to investigate the disappearances of ancient Egyptian artifacts recently discovered by an archaeologist. I won't bother describing the plot, but the archaeologist is found murdered, followed soon after with the murder of his son and the attempted murder of his son-in-law.

A few things to note. Firstly, this is Hollywood when Caucasians were asked to act in the roles depicting Native Americans and "minorities". Warner Oland was a Swede!

Secondly, this was the 5th big screen appearance of Rita Hayworth. Up to this point, and for a few more years, she appears as an extra or in secondary roles, and is billed under the name, Rita Cansino. In this movie she plays a secondary role as an Egyptian servant in the residence where most of the film's events play out. However, she is dressed in a gown with a long shawl draped over one shoulder. The other shoulder is left bare. Her midriff is also bare. Very untypical dress for a resident Egyptian maid.

The comic in the movie (there had to be a comic) was played by Stepin Fetchit, an Afro-American who is the expedition's driver. He is dressed up in shorts and a fez. He is depicted as a lazy, cowardly, bug-eyed, incoherent, drawling buffoon. He is even scolded, and actually physically pushed in two scenes.

Besides Hayworth's role, three other Arab characters appear, all in support roles.

Nigel De Brulier plays Edfu Ahmed, a somber-faced male servant, who is the first murderer suspect. A useless police inspector who has to wait for Chan to crack open the case. Finally we have a cunning, baksheesh-addicted local guide.

A Netflix action thriller. Big disappointment. A super-trained CIA killer being chased around the world by heartless rogue elements from the same organization.

Sitting in front of the TV watching this movie, I kept having flashbacks of "The Bourne Identity" and a dozen other clones. It's simply a $200 million retelling of the same story with minor variations. Like getting served macaroni and cheese over and over again, until you start speaking Italian with an English accent.

The movie came complete with the usual high-tech control room tracking events; and they even threw in a young girl ala "Man on Fire". Naturally, everybody is trying to retrieve data tucked away in a medallion, that proves misdoings in the upper echelons of the organization.

Improbable battle scenes in three or four world capitals, shootouts with guns big and smalls, vicious close quarter fights, and a fight in the air, where our hero unrestrains himself, overcomes 6 navy SEALs, destroys the bomber that is transporting him, and safely abandons the plane. Where have a seen this before? I forgot. It will come back to me I am sure the next time I'm served macaroni and cheese.

OUTSTANDING b&w crime thriller out of Hong Kong. Winner of 2 Asian Film Awards for Best Sound and Best Production Design; the Hong Kong Directors' Guild Award for Best Actress; 2 HKFCS Awards for Best Actress and Best Film; Catalonian Int'l Film Festival Award for Best Cinematography; and the MYmovies Purple Mulberry Award.

This film is near perfect in every recognizable cinematic category. Director Soi Cheang and writer Kin-Yee Au have given us a truly unforgettable realistic dark crime thriller drama that is going to set the standard for in crime thrillers for the next two decades. This was not a comic book adventure where a star wades through 25 armed baddies and puts them down in 40 seconds flat. This movie is realistic rough non-stop action that plays out in dark, drizzly, narrow, garbage-strewn, urban alleys, by desperate and traumatized men and women. In the long struggle scenes not a martial arts move is seen. The climatic fight scenes is 6 minutes long and involves 4 people fighting it out over a stretch of garbage. One of the best fight scenes that a director can bring to the screen. But, every action scene from start to finish, is a marvel in rough and tough, or touching and troubling, realism.

The settings, lighting, sound, filming and music, all come together to effectively support the moods that the story conveys.

Film co-star Yase Liu, was out of this world, as a street urchin. I watched the film twice in a 24-hour period. The second go was mainly to zero in on her performance. WOW! Action heroines in Hollywood and elsewhere need to tune in and learn from this young actress. Until further notice, she is the best. This is not to belittle the performance of co-star Ka-Tung Lam who played the role of a plainclothes police detective hunting down a psychopath with a fetish for the left hands of women. But, the character appears more obsessed with tracking down and humiliating the street urchin. Great performance Ka-Tung Lam.