Mission Stardust (1967)

 

MISSION STARDUST  (1967)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Primo Zeglio

    Lang Jefferies, Essy Persson, Luis Davila,

    Pinkas Brown, Daniel Martin, John Karlsen

Four astronauts blast off for the moon on a mission whose true purpose is a closely guarded secret, and find they're not alone up there. Low-impact, low-budget sci-fi with a musical score that couldn't exist anywhere except in a movie from the mid-to-late-'60s. Notable only for the participation of Swedish actress Essy Persson, who made her mark in erotic art-house features like "I, a Woman" and "Therese and Isabelle". She mostly stays covered up in this one, but still looks good in a space suit.

The Brain From Planet Arous (1957)

 

THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS  (1957)  ¢ ¢

    D: Nathan Hertz

    John Agar, Joyce Meadows, Robert Fuller,

    Thomas B. Henry, Ken Terrell, Henry Travis

An evil brain from another planet - a big, double-exposed brain with bright, gleaming eyes - takes over John Agar's body and threatens to destroy the Earth. It's also seriously horny - they don't call the planet "Arous" for nothing. Watch out whenever John Agar's eyes get all dark and crazy. That means something bad's going to happen, for sure. 

Mesa of Lost Women (1953)

 

MESA OF LOST WOMEN  (1953)  ¢ 1/2

    D: Ron Ormond, Herbert Tevos

    Jackie Coogan, Robert Knapp, Mary Hill,

    Harmon Stevens, Allan Nixon, Richard Travis,

    Tandra Quinn, Delores Fuller, Nico Lek

Slow-moving sci-fi about some people who survive a plane crash in an area of Mexico called the Desert of Death, where a mad scientist played by Jackie Coogan has created a race of mutant spider women. One of the women performs a nightclub dance routine that's both sexy and silly, but then she gets shot, which is bad, only she doesn't die, which is good, because she's the best thing in the movie, and there's a giant spider and an escaped lunatic with a gun and portentous narration by Lyle Talbot. 

The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ (1906)

 

THE BIRTH, THE LIFE AND THE DEATH OF CHRIST  (1906)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Alice Guy

A series of elaborately staged tableaus depicting familiar episodes in the life of Christ, shot in long takes with a static camera, the staging in each scene meticulously worked out. An ambitious movie for 1906, and at 33 minutes, an exceptionally long one. 

The Human Comedy (1943)

 

THE HUMAN COMEDY  (1943)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Clarence Brown

    Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan, James Craig,

    Marsha Hunt, Fay Bainter, Donna Reed,

    Van Johnson, John Craven, Ray Collins,

    Darryl Hickman, Mary Nash, Dorothy Morris

Wartime Americana with a script by William Saroyan, starring Mickey Rooney as a telegram delivery boy, Van Johnson as his brother who's off in the Army, Fay Bainter as his mother and Donna Reed as his sister. Rooney, who could chew the scenery like nobody else, gives a performance that's notable for its relative restraint. (It earned him an Oscar nomination.) Look for an uncredited Robert Mitchum as one of the soldiers who takes Reed and Marsha Hunt to the movies. 

The Holly and the Ivy (1952)

 

THE HOLLY AND THE IVY  (1952)  ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: George More O'Ferrall

    Ralph Richardson, Celia Johnson, Margaret Leighton,

    Denholm Elliott, John Gregson, Hugh Williams,

    Margaret Halston, Maureen Delaney, William Hartnell

When the relatives of an aging parson get together for Christmas, old wounds come to the surface and secrets are revealed. This is funny without really being a comedy, or a comedy that's not entirely funny, a balancing act the Brits seem especially adept at pulling off. Denholm Elliott, whose widest recognition would come as Marcus Brody in the Indiana Jones movies, has an early role as a soldier on a two-day pass.

Bananas (1971)

 

BANANAS  (1971)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Woody Allen

    Woody Allen, Louise Lasser, Carlos Montalban,

    Natividad Abascal, René Enriquez, Jacobo Morales,

    Don Dunphy, Roger Grimsby, Howard Cosell

Woody Allen plays Fielding Melish, a product tester who falls hard for a social activist (Louise Lasser) and ends up leading a Latin-American revolution. It's one of Woody's silliest, funniest movies, a series of crazy gags that practically trip over each other, as if he can't wait to knock one off and move on to the next. It starts with Howard Cosell doing the play-by-play at a political assassination and ends with Cosell again, broadcasting live from the bedroom on Louise and Woody's wedding night. When Woody's fans in "Stardust Memories" tell him how much they love his "early, funny" movies, this is one of the movies they're talking about. Look for the two goons he confronts in the subway car. You'll recognize one of them.

Savage Justice (1988)

 

SAVAGE JUSTICE  (1988)  ¢ ¢

    D: Joey Romero

    Julia Montgomery, Steven Memel, Ruel Vernal,

    Chanda Romero, Esther Chavez, Millicent Bautista

The Americans are being kicked out of some unnamed country where they probably don't belong, anyway, and one who doesn't escape in time is a diplomat's daughter named Sarah, who's kidnapped and tortured by a gang of rebels, and joins them like Patty Hearst did with the SLA. The guerrillas teach her to fight and kill real good, but that comes back to haunt them when Sarah joins forces with the good-guy villagers the rebels are out to destroy. Which is way more than you really need to know about this movie's plot. It was made in the Philippines. It's loaded with gun-battle action and many people are killed, but it doesn't add up to much. I could swear that as Sarah and her heroic band of commandos motored away from the pirates after they found the boat with the guns, the pirates were chanting "Hey, Diddle Diddle" at them. over and over. Really. What's up with that?

Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (1939)

 

MR. MOTO TAKES A VACATION  (1939)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Norman Foster

    Peter Lorre, Joseph Schildkraut, Lionel Atwill,

    Virginia Field, John King, Iva Stewart, 

    Victor Varconi, Honorable Wu, George P. Huntley Jr.

When the newly discovered Crown of the Queen of Sheba goes on display in a museum in San Francisco, a world-famous detective with impeccable manners and bad teeth undertakes its protection from a master thief he knows will try to steal it. A whodunit with elements of slapstick (and traces of period racism), plus an excruciating performance by George P. Huntley Jr. as a would-be Scotland Yard detective whose crime-fighting skills rank somewhere below the Three Stooges. This was the last of Lorre's Mr. Moto movies. He joked later that he grew tired of playing a character who solved murders instead of committing them, but with war on the horizon and Japan a potential threat, it was time for Mr. Moto to take a long vacation, anyway.

The Mouse That Roared (1959)

THE MOUSE THAT ROARED  (1959)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: Jack Arnold

    Peter Sellers, Jean Seberg, William Hartnell,

    David Kossoff, Leo McKern, Austin Willis

The tiny and impoverished Duchy of Grand Fenwick declares war on the United States and sends over an invasion force of 20 men wearing chain mail and armed with bows and arrows, the idea being that they'll lose the war and then cash in on American foreign aid. Inexplicably, they win, and come into the possession of an experimental bomb that could wipe out half the planet. A loony, low-key satire on the nuclear arms race, a prototype of "Dr. Strangelove" (but more warm-hearted), with Peter Sellers, coincidentally, in three roles. Maybe it's just me, but watch the scene in the conference room at the Pentagon, and see if one of the generals at the table doesn't remind you a little of Jimmy Stewart.

So Proudly We Hail (1943)

 

SO PROUDLY WE HAIL  (1943)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: Mark Sandrich

    Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake,

    George Reeves, Sonny Tufts, Barbara Britton,

    Walter Abel, Mary Servoss, Ted Hecht

Heroic Army nurses (who hate to be called heroic) dodge bombs and bullets while patching up the wounded on Bataan and Corregidor. In their spare time, which isn't much, head nurse Claudette Colbert falls for Superman, while party girl Paulette Goddard finds she kind of likes Sonny Tufts. Like John Ford's "They Were Expendable", it's a movie about courage in the face of defeat. Unlike Ford's movie, it was made when the outcome of the war was still uncertain. A rousing wartime propaganda piece with effective performances by all the women and exciting battle scenes. Lake is especially good as a nurse with a surly disposition and a bitter personal hatred for the Japanese. 

Not With My Wife, You Don't (1966)

NOT WITH MY WIFE, YOU DON'T  (1966)  ¢ ¢

    D: Norman Panama

    Tony Curtis, Virna Lisi, George C. Scott, 

    Carroll O'Connor, Eddie Ryder, Donna Danton

An underwhelming sex farce starring Scott and Curtis as Air Force fighter pilots who fall for the same woman, an Italian nurse played by Virna Lisi. The leads are attractive. The script is lame. The film-within-a-film, a black-and-white melodrama in Italian, also starring Curtis, Lisi and Scott, is pretty amusing. 

Never Say Goodbye (1946)

 NEVER SAY GOODBYE  (1946)  ¢ ¢ 1/2

    D: James V. Kern

    Errol Flynn, Eleanor Parker, Patti Brady,

    S.Z. Sakall, Peggy Knudson, Forrest Tucker,

    Donald Woods, Lucille Watson, Hattie McDaniel

Errol Flynn didn't play many husband-and-father roles, and it figures that when he did, his character would be a boozing, womanizing pinup artist who's still charming enough to be irresistible to both his young daughter and his ex-wife. The movie's a routine comic romance, except for two scenes - one in which Flynn and Donald Woods, both dressed as Santa Claus, recreate the Marx Brothers' mirror routine from "Duck Soup", and the other in which Flynn impersonates Humphrey Bogart. (It's not Flynn doing Bogart's voice. It's Humphrey Bogart.)

The African Queen (1951)

 

THE AFRICAN QUEEN  (1951)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢

    D: John Huston

    Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley,

    Theodore Bikel, Peter Bull, Walter Gotell 

Down the river with Bogey and Kate. The rain, the heat, the flies, the leeches, the reeds, the rapids, the gin, the Germans, the broken propeller and a cracked plan to blow up a gunboat if they ever get to the lake. Can you make a torpedo, Mr. Allnut? Classic adventure/romance.