Steamcarrot

I have to admit to not of hearing about this film before and got it on a whim, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Obviously modelled after The Thin Man with William Powell and Myrna Loy, Smash And Grab has Jack Buchanan and Elsie Randolph in a similar partnership - he the ever drinking, slightly crazed brains of the outfit with a healthy line of non-stop quips and she the feisty sidekick who gets sent into danger to undercover the clues.

There has been a series of smash and grab robberies throughout France and Britain and the insurance company has hired John Forrest to investigate. While the film is nothing great in plot (it is quite creaky in that department) and some of the stereotypes might amuse you, the film nonetheless totally charms you from the first frame and it can be occasionally very funny. I heartily recommend this film to all lovers of British black and white films.

OK, so the film isn't great, but it surely ain't awful either. It is reminiscent of other films, The Innocents and The Others to name but two, but there's no harm in that. There's very few films today that could be called truly original these days. Originality doesn't matter, it's the telling of the story that matters, and like the aforementioned, this film moves at a slow pace, admittedly too slow at times but it does deliver a certain creepiness and suspense. Where this film falls down for some (taking into consideration the comments already left) is that it doesn't end with an explanation. But so what? Like The Innocents you are left to come up with your own conclusions and I for one like it when the facts aren't spelled out to me in cinematic semaphore. Ambiguity is all but lost under the onslaught of mind-numbing American releases that offer nothing but 90 minutes of entertainment and then nothing. Saint Ange is a film you can chew on for days afterwards. It's very well shot, capably acted and offers a few shivers along the way. Not nearly as bad as people would have you believe.

The final outing for Mr Bean provides a chortlesome 90 minutes. Never hilarious, but always amusing. There is a slight deviation from the usual Bean characterisation and he comes across more Tati-ish, which is somewhat fitting considering the locations, although there is no satire present. Luckily there is little plot to be found, which is exactly right for this type of film and the film ambles along from one mishap to the next culminating in the totally expected sugary outcome. In a way, it's a shame it's the last Bean (if Atkinson is to be believed) as the cinema does need more of these gentle comedies that only the British seem capable of producing, and very rarely at that. On the whole, while it'll never set the world alight it's a decent enough flick that I think will improve when it transfers to the small screen, Bean's natural home.

Hidden away for many years, Queen Kong is finally gained a DVD release, probably to the embarrassment of the stars, but also to the joy of fans of low budget seventies comedy. The film follows the 1933 King Kong remarkably closely and has fun poking fun at many films of the time. The film is clearly not to be taken seriously and has it's tongue firmly embedded in it's cheeky cheek and is by no means difficult to sit through. The women's lib overtones are quite laughable though as there are plenty of scantily clad (no nudity though) females exploiting the gender and prancing around for the men of the audience to have a right good ogle. A lot of the jokes may be of the 'groan' variety but in my book there's no such thing as a bad pun. One particular scene that gave me a hearty chortle was where a priest on a plane decks an annoying lady passenger because of her annoying laughter, and the singing nun on the plane raised a smile too. Of course film snobs will poo-poo it as film snobs are want to do and that's fine. It's not a film made for them, but for those who like ever-so-slightly risqué knockabout farces will get a lot from it. And from a strictly male point of view, any film that has Valerie Leon in a skimpy bikini for the entire length of it has to add a little something. It also looks better than it should do really, even if the white cliffs of Dover are now to be found on the African coast.

"Much Too Shy" is a bit of a breakaway from the normal Formby style but despite this, or maybe because of this, it still comes up trumps. The plot is simple with Formby getting into hot water because of some portraits he has painted, which have naked bodies added to them by a scornful art class which goes on to become an omnipresent advert. Chaos and a court case follows. The only fault I found with this film was that the village was obviously built on a set; how great it would have been to have been shot on location! However set-bound films were par for the course during wartime and are easily forgiven. Set in a small rural village, the film benefits from a decent array of cameos from the likes of Kathleen Harrison, Charlie Hawtrey and, delightfully, Jimmy Citheroe. While it a gentle comedy, there is still a good number of belly laughs to be had and Formby is on his usual top form and his songs are top-notch. You may need to be a Formby fan to enjoy, but the same can be said for all his films. Formby was a genius at what he did and that comes across fully here.

In this Educational sound short from the thirties, Buster plays another variation of his dim but resourceful rich kids, seen in films like The Navigator and Battling Butler. Although this never even approaches the greatness of his earlier work, it is however a charming little film with a great sense of fun. Buster, being spurned by the girl he wants to marry, heads off in his car and keeps going until he runs out of petrol. He ends up in an old gold prospector village that has been deserted and makes himself sheriff (well, he puts on the badge and gun). He is not alone for long though as a gangster on the run crashes his plane in the town and soon strikes up a friendship of sorts with Buster. However, their peace is soon shattered by gold being discovered again and before long the town is booming again. Of course the girl shows up as the mine is owned by her father and Buster in his sheriff's role has to save the day etc etc.

The Gold Ghost has some good bits of business and some fitfully funny scenes but it's the setting that helps make it a winner. Also there are small hints of the Buster that went before as the fantasy playing of Buster being the sheriff gives way to his playing the role for real and there are several surreal touches. One of the best Buster talkies.

The Laurel and Hardy silent films were in some ways them finding their feet and honing their partnership and thus they are a mixed bag. However they were half a dozen or so made that stand up against anything they did in the sound era and You're Darn Tootin' is one one of them, Structured into three different scenarios we first meet the boys as they play in a band in a bandstand one afternoon. True to form it does not go smooth and they disrupt everything and everybody around them. After they are fired the focus switches to them in their boarding house as they try and have a meal, but even this most simple of tasks seems beyond them. Finally we see the boys try to earn a new living busking out on the streets and this is where the most memorable scenes come as they soon get into a fight, kicking ankles and punching stomach which rapidly grows and soon there's a mob fighting and trousers are getting ripped off left right and centre in an hilarious finale which is one the funniest scenes the boys did in the silent era. If you have a sense of humour you'll love this short.

This is one of the Educational Pictures Buster made in the thirties and is one of the best of the series. Buster is running a petrol station in the middle of nowhere and has various mishaps and competes in a baseball game. The first part of the film is fairly amusing in itself, but the baseball segment of the film is what people will remember. Buster used to run a comedy team himself who would come out before the proper game and entertain the crowd and a lot of the gags here are based on what he did, with exploding baseballs, huge bats, bullets embedded in the bats etc and so this becomes a valuable record of the gags he used perform way back then. If you're a Buster fan (and how can you not be?) this is definitely worth watching.

Being a fan of Harold Lloyd since the days of the BBC2 shows in the seventies I was looking forward to this talking feature of his from 1934. A lot of silent comedians had trouble when making the switch to sound (to be fair this was down to the new 'technology' as much as anything) but Lloyd seemed to make the transition quite well. The Cat's Paw is an easy watching film that neither bores nor excites. Harold plays a missionary's son who is sent back to his hometown in the states, for the 1st time since childhood, to find a wife so he can take over the running of the missionary. He ends up being a stooge in an election (the cat's paw of the title) put against the corrupt mayor to supposedly ensure an easy victory. Of course, Harold wins and goes about cleaning up the town and finds a wife in the process. The film takes a long time to wake up and it isn't until Harold's election victory that the film really starts. Unfortunately throughout the whole film, Harold the slapstick ace never appears regardless of how much you hope for it and you have to settle for Harold the reasonable character comedian, an unfortunate use of his talents that was to blight most of his talkies. The scene in the nightclub when the singer/stripper/gangster's moll tries to discredit him (and does the opposite) is very interesting as it's quite risqué. It must have have been a pre-coder, and possibly one of the last. All in all this is an average movie, enjoyable but well below Lloyd's capabilities.

Firmly set in the groovy swinging sixties of London this gloriously bonkers film, if nothing else, will have you glued to the screen to find out what the hell is going on. Part psycho film, part mad scientist film, part espionage thriller, part sci-fi it seems like two unconnected films stitched together, but it does come together at the end..well kind of.

There's a madman loose, trawling London's hippest night-club and killing young girls, who are subsequently found drained of blood. So the police, led by Alfred Marks (who must have gone to same police academy as Donald Pleasance's character from Death Line), set up a honey trap; meanwhile, somewhere else, some Russian/nazi types seemingly hell-bent on creating a 'master race' are going round the countryside shooting people, delivering Vulcan death grips and dabbling in a spot of torture. While this is going on, a jogger who collapsed at the beginning of the film, is disappearing limb by limb in a strange hospital, tended to by a mute nurse. Add to this Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing (in a very brief role), vats of acid, a long car chase, the police seemingly constantly getting their heads kicked in by the vampiric psycho, Yutte Stensgaard (hooray!), the title song being sung over and over by Amen Corner in the night-club scenes and the mad scientist denouement just before his icky demise because of the police pathologist who didn't back off from the investigation when ordered by the government and you have it. It comes over at times as an adult version of the Avengers. This could have been a cult classic but somehow it falls short and the action scenes are crying out for a director with a surer hand and some snappy editing. Also there doesn't seem to be a lead character as the director switches between story threads at the drop of a hat and Cushing, Lee and Price are criminally wasted. But for all that it's a fun film and well worth a watch should you get a chance .

Hammer's stab at the old story promises much but ultimately doesn't deliver, which is a real shame because Terence Fisher gives the film a great look with wonderful sets and he manages to build up atmosphere and suspense, only for it all to come crashing down in subsequent scenes. The Phantom is hideously underused, while the romance between the Heather Sears and Edward De Sousa, as the opera singer and opera producer, is featured far too much. Whilst Fisher should have been centring on the relationship between Sears and the Phantom, he instead gives us romantic trysts in hansom cabs etc..as if we care. This adds to the plodding feel to the film and the film never really gets into its' stride. Not that it's all bad; Michael Gough enjoys himself immensely as the real monster of the piece as the evil upper-class untalented composer who steals the Phantoms music which helps you feel genuine sympathy for the Phantom. But it's not enough and the film disappoints. Oh, and the opera is awful.

Hammers 4th and last foray into the word of Egyptology and mummies is notable for a complete absence of a lumbering figure swathed in bandages and makes for an interesting , if not entirely successful, addition to the series. Instead of a mummy we have a story of re-incarnation with the perfectly preserved body of Tera, an ancient evil Egyptian Queen , played by the statuesque Valerie Leon who also plays the Professor's daughter Margaret Fuchs (no less). One of the problems with this film (probably) is the troubles they had in production. First of all Peter Cushing's wife dies and he bows out after filming started and then the director Seth Holt shuffles off this mortal coil a few weeks later before filming ends giving the film a disjointed feel. The film also suffers from being mainly set bound (and only about three sets at that). Still Leon looks great, although she can't act, and everyone else gives sterling support. Unfortunately Seth Holt was no Terence Fisher (or Roy Ward Baker etc for that matter) and the film lacks any suspense or genuine shocks. The beginning (dream flashback to Tera's incarceration) and the end remain the best scenes in the film while throughout certain decent set pieces can be seen amongst the somewhat confusing narrative. However I don't wish to sound too harsh, especially considering the problems the film had, as this is still a very entertaining film and far better that the Charlton Heston version The Awakening (both being versions of Bram Stokers Jewel Of The Seven Stars.

Kiss Of The Vampire was the second and last Hammer vampire film made before Christopher Lee agreed to don the fangs once more. It's a shame he didn't come back for this one because one of the very few weak points in this film is the fairly unmenacing Dr Ravna, chief vampire, played rather insipidly by Noel Willman.

The film opens with one of Hammer's usual strong prologues as we follow a funeral procession that is overlooked by a sinister looking figure standing on high. I won't spoil things for those who have yet to see the film, suffice to say first-time Hammer director Don Sharp handles the proceedings exceedingly well, instantly plunging the viewer into that classic atmosphere of brooding menace and Gothic feel that Hammer did so well.

After the titles we are in the familiar territory of stranded newlyweds, scared villagers (albeit only two of them) and a village overlooked by a Gothic mansion housing the you-know-what. But if there's one thing that Hammer were good at was recycling old plots and giving them an injection of something fresh. The film trundles along at a somewhat leisurely pace, compared to others, but is no worse off from it;in fact the slow build up of tension works well.

One of the more interesting aspects of the film are the way the vampires are portrayed. These aren't the superhuman, nigh-on indestructible vampires of old, but a more vulnerable, although just as evil, type. Dr Ravna lives in the mansion with his two children (all vamps) and is surrounded by many acolytes. With their being very few 'bitings' and hardly any blood on show and also the way the acolytes act, this is more of a religious cult than a nest of vampires. In fact Professor Zimmer even describes losing his daughter to them as 'she fell in with a bad crowd'.

As you can imagine, the new bride is soon one of the followers (ensnared at a particularly effective masquerade ball) and it's up to Professor Zimmer and the husband to rescue them, setting the scene for the final showdown, which again is faultlessly done. Chalked pentagrams, high winds and swarms of bats bring a memorable climax to yet another top notch Hammer. Special effects-wise the bats are done in the usual crappy way, but then again they always are and I can forgive that. Highly recommended.

This Terence Fisher directed Hammer film is not just a great horror but a great film, which is all the more remarkable if you consider the werewolf doesn't actually appear till near the end.

The story starts many years before the afflicted one is born and you get the whole history of how he came into being. A beggar is thrown into a cell by a despotic nobleman and forgotten about. The only people he has any contact with are the jailer and his mute daughter. Over time the daughter grows up and becomes the beautiful Yvonne Romain who, after avoiding the amorous advances of the now decrepit nobleman, ends up being thrown into the same cell as the beggar, who is now quite insane and rapes her. She escapes, kills the nobleman and disappears into the woods where she is eventually found by the kindly Don Alfredo Corledo who takes her home to care for her. The product of the rape is born on Christmas Day which means bad luck for the kid, as children born out of wedlock on the day Christ was born are cursed. After a few years, goats started getting killed and everything points to the young Leon being the culprit (his mother died in childbirth and the kindly Corledo is raising him as his own). So his windows are barred to stop his excursions and, most importantly, he is given love and affection which stops the werewolf coming out.

This is one of the best aspects of Hammer's version of the werewolf tale. This version of the lycanthrope legend purports that the man/werewolf is in constant battle within the person : when the spirit of the man is weak, the werewolf will emerge, but when the spirit of the man is strong the werewolf will not. So when showered with the love and affection Corledo and his missus give him the werewolf is not to be seen. When he leave home he falls in love which again keeps the beast at bay, but this is a horror film and the beast will emerge.

The film looks wonderful. The Spanish sets are realistic and Fisher handles the proceedings in his usual faultless way. The addition of the love story here is integral to the plot and works perfectly. What really helps with this film is the long pre-werewolf story which adds so much depth to the character of Leon that it makes it a stand-alone film in the lycanthrope genre. Probably most Hammer fans would put this under the perfect ten, but to me it is perfect and also occasionally beautiful.

The first of Hammer's psycho thrillers but not one it's best. Maybe I shouldn't have watched it so soon after the excellent 'Nightmare', or indeed before it but there you go. Similar to 'Nightmare' in that it was scripted by Jimmy Sangster and directed by Freddie Francis, and again a plot revolving around who is mad, and who isn't, the film is only effective occasionally. There's cash to be inherited and Oliver Reed wants it, and he doesn't want to share it with his sister, Jeanette Scott. When Scott apparently sees her long-dead brother at a memorial service for her parents, Reed sees this as the excuse he needs to declare her insane and keep all the cash for himself. But to throw a spanner in the works, the dead brother turns up...... This is a competent film but needed a bit more. Francis makes the film look too bright, a few more dark corners and shadows would have helped build the atmosphere some. Reed's acting doesn't shift from 'intense' mode, which is fine but a bit more ambiguity would have helped in this type of film. The plot plods along at times and could have done with being tightened; there's also plot lines that simply disappear as if Sangster had forgotten about them. At the end of the day a mediocre Hammer. Watch Nightmare to see how it should have been done.

Slightly at odds with Hammer's usual offerings, this is a film which could have been sooo good, but as it is as much miss than hit. The story is straightforward as usual-a soldier returned from the war teams up with a hunchbacked Professor to travel the land and seek out vampires, in this case a vampire that literally sucks the life out of it's victims, leaving them as wrinkled pensioners. So far so good, but unfortunately Horst Janssen, as the eponymous hero, is woefully miscast never coming close to giving the character depth. This, of course, is a problem that doesn't lie squarely at his feet as the writer/director Brian Clemens has to hold his hand up too. Clemens was one of the great British TV writers (The Avengers being one of his major credits) but he doesn't seem to be able to shake off the shackles of TV while directing this film. He tries to get some of the surreal humour that he used in The Avengers included but it seems at odds with the rest of the film. However, this disjointed film does have it's moments and I would recommend viewing at least once, but don't expect glory days Hammer. Apparently the film was hopefully going to be the start of a new series of films and you can see how that could have happened if the film had a surer touch and a different star.

So the basic premise is a stage illusionist gets girls on stage and basically mangles them, but hey presto there OK at the end. But then they die shortly afterwards with the same wounds that they got during the act. That's about it, oh and there's a 'twist' at the end. I cannot help but compare HGL with Ed Wood. The similarities are all too obvious for all to see. Question is are they trying to be badly made or are they just badly made? I've no idea but I get the feeling HGL knew what he was doing, and through that I feel cheated. It wouldn't have hurt to put a bit more effort in. The gore is there naturally (in fact the title probably refers to HGL rather than the illusionist), but most of it could be created in your own kitchen. There's a whole 'what is reality' thing going on which is never properly addressed, which it should have been if that was his point. I've seen an interview with HGL in which he came across very well, but I think it's more the case of him talking a good movie rather than delivering one. I love low budget movies but this one has no style and the narrative jars at every corner. Will I try another HGL movie? Yeah probably, I'm a sucker for pap and maybe one day I'll get it. A mildly diverting oddity.

The daddy of all Dracula movies and I'm not forgetting Nosferatu. Quite how Dracula impersonations would be these days without this film is hard to think. This film was responsible for the Universal series of horror films, which in turn gave the impetus for Hammer and so on and so forth, but how does the film stand up today? Well it's a mixed bag. On one side you have glorious sets, magnificent atmosphere and great helmsmanship from Tod Browning. On the other hand you have hammy acting, incredibly stilted scenes and some lackadaisical helmsmanship from Tod Browning. The early scenes in Transylvania alone make this film a must see. The atmosphere is lead-heavy with foreboding and Lugosi's first words are electric. However when we move to Britain pace all but disappears as Browning seems to be doing his job while asleep. It becomes very apparent that this is a version of a stage play rather than an adaptation of Stoker's novel and we get too much talk. It's not all bad though, and Browning wakes up occasionally to give a nice set piece or two and the ending is particularly good. To be fair to Tod Browning, talkies were relatively new and they were still struggling to master the new medium. Out of this comes one of my favourite things about this film-the almost total lack of score. This, for me, help a lot with building what suspense there was; rather than the music trying to direct your thoughts, you are left free in the silence to scare yourself (or not, it's your choice!). In fact there are a lot of long silences, which are probably a remnant from the silent days. On the whole a film that must be seen because of its' importance and a very enjoyable one, but maybe not the classic it's remembered to be.

Lying uncomfortably between barely watchable and so-bad-it's-good comes The Monster aka I Don't Want To Be Born aka The Devil Within Her. A British rip-off of Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist and many others. This has a good cast with (a still looking good at 42) Joan Collins, Ralph Bates, Donald Pleasance and horror-eye-candy stalwart Caroline Munro. Collins plays an ex-stripper, now married to Italian Ralph Bates and the film starts with Collins going through a difficult child birth, or so we're meant to think. If that was meant to be bad, Mrs Steamcarrot must have been giving birth to Godzilla with our first born. Anyway, because of turning down a dwarf's advances the child is cursed to be possessed by the devil. In reality the ankle biter only has huge strength and a nasty attitude. All scenes of the 'demonic' brat hurting or killing people are off-screen. You see Collins recoiling in horror with scratch marks on her face, then cut to a picture of a very-undevilish baby looking all cutesy. Or a hand reaching out and shoving a nurse into a pond then cut back to cutesy kid, pram blankets unruffled. I don't mind a bit of suspension of disbelief, but this takes it too far. Anyway Ralph Bates' nun sister arrives, sporting silly accent and working at an animal testing laboratory (!), and thinks Collins' suspicions of possession is probably right. But she waits until everyone is killed to perform a simple exorcism that kills the cursing dwarf and returns the baby to normality. Why didn't she do that when she first arrived? No idea, it was only a bit of Latin and placing a cross on the forehead. This is a very silly film with hardly any redeeming features. Plus points include an unintentionally hilarious 'erotic' dance with said dwarf from Ms Collins, some nice shots of London and that's about it. Oh and the soundtrack to the lovemaking scene gave me a groaning chuckle. A disappointing 3. Director Peter Sasdy is capable of much better.

After Psycho proved a hit, Hammer were only too happy to jump on the bandwagon and do their own psycho-thrillers which, to be honest, all had similar story lines involving, insanity, driving people to insanity, impostors, family solicitors, pots of cash waiting to be inherited etc etc etc and as many twists and turns that could possibly be put into the story. Nightmare is one of the, if not the, best of this Hammer sub-genre. A young girl witnesses her mother stab her father to death on her birthday and, not surprisingly, this leads to a breakdown and to nightmares, with the girl believing that she is going the same way as her mother i.e. buying the one-way ticket to the asylum. But is she? As always, nothing is as it seems. Admittedly you can usually spot the twists coming but it doesn't matter here. The look of the film is fantastic. A clean, crisp black and white that director Freddie Francis makes full use of and at times his visuals alone set your spine tingling. The opening scene of the film as the young girl walks down the darkened corridors looking for the voice that is calling her is one of Hammer's most haunting set pieces and a great start to the film. Where this film differs from the others is at the half-way point the focus switches from the young girl to two of the other up-to-now minor characters and the young girl doesn't appear too much afterwards. This doesn't jar as much as you might expect, as Francis paves the way by dropping hints and enticing the viewers with possible plots before this happens. The end of the film, although not totally unexpected is certainly satisfying. Yet another minor Hammer classic that's guaranteed to get your bumps goosed!

An often overlooked gem from Hammer, Vampire Circus is one of Hammer's best and most original vampire films. Count Mitterhouse has been feeding on the children of a small village and they storm his castle and eventually kill him, but he lives long enough to tell them that their children's blood will bring him back to life. 15 years later, when the village is cut off from the outside world because of the plague a circus breaks through the roadblocks and comes to the village. At first the villagers welcome this entertaining attraction/distraction, but soon they realise that something is wrong, and their children are in danger again as the circus people go about their business of making the Count's prophecy come true. The film has none of the usual stars like Cushing, Lee or even Michael Ripper but does have quite a large ensemble cast, each getting their fair share of screen time helping it move along at a fair old pace. Circus' themselves can be creepy enough, but this (very small) one certainly has a feel of unease about it. It is people mainly by vampires who have ability to change themselves into animals and they use this effectively as part of their show. Acrobats will turn into bats mid-air before the eyes of the villagers, or a man will jump into the air and land as a panther. A dwarf performing clown routines and a mute strong man (Dave "Darth Vader" Prowse) help the show along, all the time bewitching the young of the village. The film has a surprisingly high body count (some off-camera) and a liberal dosage of flesh is to be seen. The sets are of Hammer's high standard (and some can be recognised from other films) and the acting (with a couple of exceptions) is better than could be expected, in fact quite restrained at times which in itself is unusual for 70's, and I have to say that I even found the music score to be damn good. Another point of interest is the opening scene, set 15 years earlier, goes on a long time and you are quite taken aback when the credits actually begin to roll, almost like the edited highlights of a previous film! You also get two endings for the price of one as the villagers take arms against the circus, eventually killing them, only to come up against the revived Count Mitterhouse, who it has to be said, is a pretty tough character and at the end there can't be many people left alive in the village. I've probably given too much away, but everyone reading this knows how these films go. It may contain the usual clichés like the brandishing of pitchforks and torches, the unbelieving doctor etc but these can be forgiven in such a compelling film.

This was one of the two-reelers Buster made for Educational pictures in the thirties. These films were nowhere near as good as his classic work from the twenties, nevertheless they do provide amusing entertainment. In this one Buster is eloping with his sweetheart and unbeknownst to them the shop next door is being burgled. The police arrive looking for the burglars and Buster and his girl mistakenly head off in the cop car. Before long they are being chased, leading to some shenanigans in a farm and with hitch-hiking attempts. This little film is not as bad as some would have you believe and is worth seeing, especially if you're a Buster fan.

In 1947, 9 years after his last film, Harold Lloyd re-appeared once more to give the world his swansong. The story tells of a college hero who ends up in a dead-end job and how his life changes when he ends up redundant aftter 22 years. There will always be an interest in the last film of any great clown and while some disappoint, Lloyds finale is quite a joy. Make no mistake though, this is a far cry from his groundbreaking, hilarious romps of the 20's, but if you don't expect that you'll have a very enjoyable 90 minutes. After being made redundant the lifelong teetotal ends up getting drunk very quickly, and noisily!! Later on Harold wins a fortune on the horses embarks on a huge bender. When it's all over and Harold wakes up and he realises he can't remember a single thing about Wednesday! It turns out he had bought a circus and the rest of the film centres around that little problem. As you might hope with a Lloyd film there are antics high on a skyscraper which, strangely, aren't as convincing as his silent days of yore but still amuse. On a whole the film is fine ending to Lloyd's movie career, while not capturing his early greatness, the film entertains and a good few belly laughs are to be had. There is a romantic sub-plot, but this is kept exceedingly minimal and is quite amusing in it's own way.

This is a little gem of a film that doesn't date nearly as much as you would think, considering it come from the early thirties. The masterful hand of director Rene Clair overcomes an insubstantial plot and imbues the film with some fantastic visuals, humorous satire and some good clean knockabout fun. Two prisoners escape from custody and one reaches the top of the ladder while the other clings onto the bottom rung. Clair makes his feeling about capitalism clear by showing how the worker under the capitalist is as much a prisoner as the people locked in the jail. But any political overtones are not so much that they interrupt with the comic narrative and the film merrily continues with it's chases, bottom-kicking and all manner of good-natured silliness. Highly recommended.

Frederick, a man with no memory of his childhood, attends a party at which he sees a poster of some ruins which stirs, what he believes to be, memories his youth. He seems to recall meeting, and falling in love with, a young girl at the ruins 20 years previously. His mother dismisses the idea, angering Frederick who sets off to see if he can track down the ruins in the poster. His searching takes him through the dark, desolate streets of Paris where he accidentally sets free 4 vampire women who seem to protect him on his quest. All the while he is seeing or having visions of the young girl from years ago……. This being a Jean Rollin film, the expected dodgy acting and plethora of gratuitous nudity is firmly in place but does not distract from the weird and wonderful goings-on. The themes of lost childhood, memories and dreams are fused together creating what comes across as a filmed nightmare as Frederick roams the Parisian streets, searching for something he doesn't know how to find. The ending of the film is bizarre, beautiful and touching all at once. I loved it.