Political theory and practice

IMDb meta-data is runtime of 1 hour and 25 minutes, rated 5.6 by 542 insomniacs.
Genre: Sy Fy, Noir

Verdict: Broken-backed but diverting in both parts.
Carmine Orrico, his cheek bones have never looked sharper, lands in England and young women start disappearing. Meanwhile a cast of reliable British character actors study a glowing soccer ball, and when it goes missing they call in another set of reliable British character actors to track it down. The reliables include Maurice Denham, Patricia Haines, Alfred Burke, John Carson, Aubrey Morris, Warren Mitchell, Marianne Stone, and Barbara French. It is an ensemble piece and better for it.
The first half is Sy Fy as Denham and Carmine track an object from SPACE and find it on the pitch. Well, it is England and they are soccer mad there. But it is one strange soccer ball. Very. Denham decides to commune with it. Did his life insurance include death by soccer ball?
After killing Denham, the soccer ball grew legs, scarpered, stole a car, and set off for Vienna for the second half of the film which is Noir.
More than twenty young girls answering an ad for swimsuit models — at this point the slumbering fraternity brothers gained consciousness — have disappeared. Since they have disappeared, they are not on screen, and the bros lapsed into the usual state of unconsciousness. The police, oh hum, find these disappearances to be routine. Flighty young girls are always disappearing, it seems.
Carmine tries to convince the stodgy British moustaches that the soccer ball is a menace. He is dismissed as a flighty (wo)man. Then he connects the missing girls with a soccer magazine and the chase is on. It goes all zither and Third Man thereafter.
Squeeze tries to talk to the soccer ball, which is very polite, and assures her that the missing girls will come to no harm (but that they will never be seen again on Earth). She does not find that very reassuring, so soccer ball kills her, because she is too smart. That was a surprise. But at least Carmine is safe, as he is not that smart.
Turns out soccer ball is a man with a lobster claw on one arm — which makes lighting a cigarette a chore — and a lump of rubber on his profile but he has mellifluous voice when he is not a soccer ball.
Eventually, Carmine of and with the Yard corners soccer man, and he explains his world — of all places, Ganymede — has had a Republican apocalypse and needs new blood, i.e., breeding stock, in the hope shaking off the lobster claws. Apologia delivered, he blasts off with the hu(wo)man cargo.
Carmine seems to have forgotten that soccer man killed his mentor, Denham, and his squeeze Squeeze, and has alien-napped twenty-one girls against their wills, and that they will be sex slaves. Carmine seems to find that normal. Ahem. Maybe those rumours about his life style choices have a truth in them.
The pace is brisk though the soccer ball is loquacious for a shy alien.

IMDb meta-data is runtime 1 hour and 5 minutes, rated 7.0 by 290 cinematizens.
Genre: Mystery

Verdict: Art /deco steals the show.
Eight strangers are invited to a swish soiree in a splendid penthouse apartment. After wining and dining at a banquet buffet while waiting for the arrival of the mystery host, Siri on the radio informs them that the ninth guest is DEATH. Each will be murdered. These are Eight Little Indians off the Agatha Christie reservation.
In the penthouse doors are locked, gates carry an electric charge, stairwell doors have been welded shut, windows cannot be opened, the balcony is on the thirtieth floor – too high for shouting or jumping. The fraternity brothers suggested throwing furniture off the balcony to bring a reaction.
There is no escape. They must endure the McKinsey management training seminar that will lead to their deaths. I know the feeling.
The mystery is why they are there and who is the mastermind. There are connections among some but not all of them. None is innocent. They include an oily dean from a university, an egotistical assistant professor from the same university, a political fixer and his mistress, a shyster (aka lawyer), a self-appointed do-gooder, a hypocritical society hostess, a starlet trying to sleep her way to the top, and – shock – an unscrupulous journalist.
They all wear the most formal Tuxedo Park attire, and proclaim their ignorance and innocence. The former is credible but the latter is not.
What follows is a character study as each guest reacts to the doom the awaits. Some panic and in so doing hasten their own end. Others go all rational and try to figure it out. Some read spam email. Others close in on themselves, but no one turns to prayer. There is a butler for comic relief, and mercifully he is not a she or a black. For such a static story, the direction is crisp.
The art deco set and the 1930s hi-tech are marvellous. It makes it a variant of the Old Dark House with all its quirks, lurks, traps, sliding panels, disappearing objects, talking radio, and more.

IMDb meta-data is runtime of 1 hour and 7 minutes, rated 6.1 by 202 cinematizens
Genre: Old Dark House

Verdict: It took a long time to get to the Old Dark House.

Querulous relatives unite, briefly, to have elderly Aunt Cassandra certified so that they can get their hand on the dosh she teases them about – more than two million smackers which in today’s geld is about 30 million iron men — which she says she has secreted in her Old Dark House. Whoa!

We start in a courtroom where Cassie appears crazy like a fox. But then what law school did that attorney attend? His prime argument for her being nuts is that she puts vinegar on apple pie. Really! Who doesn’t?

The vultures of the press enjoy the spectacle. The judge gavels Cassie into sanity.

To show how much she enjoyed the outing Cassandra invites the mob of scheming relatives to her Old Dark House (at last) for a week while she will decide how to divvy up the dosh. They have to go and go they do, one at a time.

No sooner do they arrive than the body count starts. Stabbings, shootings, poisonings here and there reduce the number of relatives. Is Cassie getting her revenge? Did Hillary do it, again? Was the vinegar off?

A newshawk and gal pal have insinuated themselves into the proceedings and Cassie finds that funny. The local sheriff is off work from the circus where he is the clown.

Turns out…. [Spoiler a-coming!] one of the relatives is reducing the number of claimants. To add to the confusion the villain(s) keeps moving the stiffs around. No explanation is ever revealed for this mystery. What, why, and how all are left to the memory-hole.

We also have the house staff, mercifully free of a black comic relief stereotype, a lugubrious butler, a greasy chauffeur, a snippy maid, a jolly cook. There is also an ever present nosy neighbour peering in windows to add to the soup.
The denouement is unexpected, though it is historically inaccurate as we pedants have to say. The Confederate States did not print a $10,000 bill. Tsk, tsk. It also turns out the neighbour is more than a neighbour. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Phil Rosen directed with panache the crisp story by George Brickner.

The best part may be the end, when one of the players breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience saying the Hays Office (1930-1968) will not like this film.

For those born yesterday, the Hays Office was a voluntary production code for the Hollywood factory. The code permitted chaste kisses, but not too many. No profanity and, of course, no nudity. No mixing of races. No adultery. And, hardest of all, law enforcement officials had to be portrayed positively. In its first and last decades it was largely toothless but between 1942 and 1955 it dictated much. As significant as it was, this is the only time I have noticed a reference to it in a movie, and this one is irreverent.

Sharp eyes will spot Hays Code certification as above on many films from that era.

The players were diverting in this exercise. Wallace Ford, a perennial supporting actor, made the most of the male lead. Marian Marsh as his wise cracking assistant held up her end of the partnership.

IMDb meta-data is 1 hour and 25 minutes but it seemed like m o r e, rated 4.3 by 48 members of the cast.
Genre: Amateurism and Sy Fy

Verdict: The 1957 Chevrolet is the star of the show, along with some (not enough) period music.

A group of thirty-year olds pretend to be high school students wearing saddle shoes, poodle skirts, a-lines, letter sweaters, sporting duck tails, and so on. The period detail was the best part of the effort.

Dweeb’s date with Date is interrupted by Bully and company at the soda shop. After an embarrassing departure, Dweeb and Date go parking, where is seems Dweeb does not know what to do. Did he sleep through human biology in eleventh grade or what?

The inaction is punctuated by a platoon of zombies who could not get date and hence were available to be suborned by Martians claiming to be Republicans. The zombie make-up is far better than any production that starred John Agar, and when I think of that old stone face, I realise the acting here has some energy.

Dweeb and Date are joined by Escapee from Zombieism and the three of them battle the Martian scourge, only two of whom were seen earlier. In a decaying farm shed they find a DIY manual to make an anti-Martian ray gun which they proceed to do. The manufacture is cloaked by the insertion of comic books frames, which were rather cute.

Somewhere, some how, some time along the way we learn that the Martians have ordered the zombie army to zombie-nap teenage girls because ‘Mars Needs Women’ (1967) [discussed elsewhere on this blog]. The zombies are such more respectful and polite to their victims than most jocks on a Saturday night date.

They blast the zombies, who let us remember, were innocent teenagers trapped by the two green Martians dressed up in Masonic gear we saw near the beginning.

These victims were shown with bongo drums, and the whiff of marijuana in the air, berets, beards all the usual paraphernalia of beatniks in the 1950s. They each also have a large number ‘3’ on their labels. Where were ‘1’ and ‘2’? Who knows? Not even close watching revealed the answer to that mystery. Number ‘6’ is way beyond this effort and the fraternity brothers.

Be that as it may.

After saving the world by seeing off the Martians, Dweeb has the confidence to sock Bully.

The end.

IMDb meta-data is runtime 1 hour and 4 minutes, rated 5.7 by 343 cinematizens.
Genre: Mystery

Verdict: Whodunit?
In Pea Soup London a turbaned Stereotype is up to no good on the docks, observed by Smooth. Turns out Smooth and Stereotype are residents of a rambling boarding house whose residents include keyhole peepers, sidlers, creepers, sneakers, priers, snoopers, and suspicious characters all.
Smooth gets stabbed, often, to death; plod appears. He ready to charge anyone and everyone. As the bodies pile up, Plod blames each murder on the next victim. He does not notice this. Well, he is consistent.
Writer-in-residence and Belle, daughter of the manager of the boarding house, take up the investigation while Plod smokes a pipe. They discover everyone’s secrets, including the cross-dresser.
Ha, ha, ha, turns it was all a joke, since it makes no sense otherwise.
Despite the regiment of genuine British accents, it was made by Warner Brothers in Burbank California with denizens of the Hollywood British colony. Many are familiars from the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films of the time.
It was the first Hollywood film for Turhan Bey, the Austrian Jew who fled Anschluss to play stereotypes in Tinsel Town.