TPTV Films Page 23

Crossroads to Crime (1960)

You wait for a Ferdy Mayne to come along and you get two at once, as this actor, who I vaguely recognise was playing virtually the same part in "Marilyn" - the suave gang boss.

This is from the Edgar Wallace stable and one I hadn't seen before (I have about 10 of the DVDs!), and was a pretty much mundane affair of lorry hijacks and theft from, taking place at a roadside caff on the Great North Road.

Few faces, like Victor Maddern, Harry Towb and Miriam Karlin, and a rather nice MkII Ford Zephyr soft top with white wall tyres.

Thank God it was a usual short EW.

Scotland Yard Investigator (1945)
Actually made in The States, but I'll let it slip through as it's set in London

Good yarn of theft and murder, when an art connoisseur is determined to steal the Mona Lisa whilst it is in storage in the mining caves where all art was moved to at the start of the war (in Wales I think). Anyway, the war is over and the thief sees the opportunity to steal the painting when the director of the Louvre comes over from Paris to take it back, but it's discovered that at some point it had been swapped for a fake.

Erich von Stroheim plays the art fanatic beautifully and the only other person I knew in the film was C. Aubrey Smith, the archetypal tall moustachioed English gentleman, craggy and a damn good egg, who I'd seen in a couple of films before.

Well worth a look at just over an hour in length.

Actually made in The States, but I'll let it slip through as it's set in London

They never get it right though,too many cobbles or bowler hats or something.I know it's petty but it irks and spoils the film for me.

Yes, I know what you mean - I notice even the interior sets are clearly what Americans think great English houses look like inside with big ugly clunky furniture etc.

Am currently reading my collection of "Classics Illustrated" comics that collected as a kid - of American origin of course and the artwork is all wrong clothes wise. For example, in "Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde", his colleague Gabriel Utterson who investigates the case would look more at home as a gambler on a Mississippi steamboat.

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 23rd September 2020, 6:04 AM

Anyway the war is over and the thief sees the opportunity to steal the painting when the director of the Louvre comes over from Paris to take it back, but it's discovered that at some point it had been swapped for a fake.

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That happened with The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies as well.

The Hostage (1956)

Well I watched it, with Michael's Grandfather in it (Carl Jaffe), and that's the only reason I did as it's not the sort I normally go for, fortunately after the South American scenes, most of it was filmed in London.

I don't think it was a bad as the scathing reviewers say but do agree the ending is rubbish, in fact laughable. Carl Jaffe played the part of the Presidente of Santanio well, and there was no one else in it I knew - just for a change, the token Yank hero was an Australian by the name of Ron Randell.

Well yes indeed there you go - even I had hoped for a far better ending; it certainly deserved to have a better one; given the passable build up; even with Grandpa's rather suspicious foreign accent; a mash-up of mysteriously central European-esque... they either were obliged to have a restricted screenplay run-time or were overdosing on the Woodbines... mmm - never mind CJ there is always another B movie to ham up that dodgy foreigner accent... all together now (and - if I may - to paraphrase a more iconic CJ; the inimitable John Barron...): "... I didn't get where I am today by hamming up a foreign accent...!..." I rest my elocution lesson. Oops. Prof

Dangerous Ground (1934)

A film that you could say is in two parts and a good whodunnit for a pre war film where there is a mysterious mastermind (is there ever) who organises safe jobs, jewellery thefts etc. The film then sees the gang broken up but the mastermind is still at large.

We then see various characters centred around a miserable rich man whose wife has an affair with a family friend and the insurance agent investigating the jewellery thefts is the boyfriend of his daughter. The rich man is shot, throw in a dodgy butler and it's then a case of who shot him, and is the rich man the mastermind. Bit confusing, I admit, but not a bad film with some of the acting a bit stagy, but that is not unusual for a whodunnit of this period.

Appointment with Crime (1946)

A very good William Hartnell plays a small time crook who is persuaded to be the smash and grab man on a jewellery shop, but as he puts his hands into steal the gems a shutter comes down and smashes his wrists. The rest of the gang leg it and he's left to not only go to prison, but recover the use of his hands.

He comes out of prison swearing retribution and so starts a series of murders as he works his way up through the gang until he gets to the big cheese played by Herbert Lom.

Few other odd names - Wilfrid Hyde-White in a very minor part as a cleaner(!), Robert Beatty, Wally Patch, and one mistake in the IMDb, they list James Robertson Justice as the Prison Governor, which he was not (it was Ian Fleming - no,not that one) and in fact he wasn't in the film at all! No point in telling the powers that be at IMDb as they only ignore what you tell them, as I have found from experience.

I enjoyed it.

I have vague memory of seeing this a while back and enjoyed it too. I rather think if JRJ had been the prison Guvnor it might have been more comedic - I always think of JRJ in stuff like the Doctor series and 50s/60s school level farces; hilarious in their way I suppose e.g. Sir Lancelot Spratt in Doctor At Large (starring a youthful Dirk Bogarde in the lead): LS to student doctors gathered around a guinea-pig patient: 'What's the Surgeon's biggest enemy? - come on come on... Blood! you numskulls! - when you cut a patient open he bleeds and if you don't do something pretty quickly he'll bleed out and die; this - gentlemen, is known as the bleeding time. LS to Bogarde (not paying attention): you - what's the bleeding time? - DB looks up surprised and anxious, glances at his watch and replies: "2.30 sir" - arf arf gaffaw gaffaw - oh dear we've found my level...anyway I digress... Herbert Lom always made convincing darker characters; which used his talent better than his later outings as the hapless Cheif of Police in the Pink Panther series...Prof

Ray Galton had an awkward moment with JRJ.When he worked with him on a Hancock.Ray was proud of his Scottish ancestry and allegedly JRJ dismissed the Galtons just as "tinkers".

Yes I can see why there would be friction when you get two intense 'egos' in the same room(!) - I dunno these sensitive creative types tsk tsk... Prof

Quote: john tregorran @ 25th September 2020, 9:03 PM

Ray Galton had an awkward moment with JRJ.When he worked with him on a Hancock.Ray was proud of his Scottish ancestry and allegedly JRJ dismissed the Galtons just as "tinkers".

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That has to be brilliant "The Last of the MacHancocks" - one of my favourites, where JRJ played Seamus McNasty of the MacNasty clan who hated the MacHancocks.

Oh come off it Sid, you're no descendent of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Dick Turpin perhaps, but no more.

Timeslip (1955) Yank title The Atomic Man

Science fiction hokum that had many holes in it, and with two American actors in the lead parts that I'd never heard of - in fact the only British actor I knew was, surprisingly, Charles Hawtrey in a minor role.

Man is fished out of Thames, shot and barely alive and found to glow with radiation and yet not give off x-rays. When he comes to, he also, like the famous Two Ronnies sketch, answers the previous question - why is never explained. The two American reporters recognise him as a famous nuclear scientist, but how could that be as he is alive and working at the nearby nuclear plant. They (again) decide they can do better than the police to establish who is the real scientist.

Mixed into this is some Argentinian (too boring to go into why) plot to blow up the nuclear plant.

As I say so many plot holes, you could drive a bus through them. Load of tosh - you need some semblance of fact.

>>END

Quote: john tregorran @ 26th September 2020, 12:11 AM

Oh come off it Sid, you're no descendent of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Dick Turpin perhaps, but no more.

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Just before that - Bill and Tone.................

Hey Tub look, it's Sid

Yes, I knew it was him the moment I saw the cosh on the end of his sword

AND, before that when Scottish solicitor Kenneth Williams was reading out the will

Hancock "Legal is it? Signed across a stamp"

KW "Mon, it's written on a stamp"