The Gorilla Man (1943)

During WWII, a group of British commandos carry out a daring raid in France, learning in the process German plans for an invasion of England. The leader of the men, Captain Craig Killian (John Loder), is injured in the raid, and to save time is taken to a sanatorium on the English coast. However, unknown to the authorities, the sanatorium is a front for a nest of Nazi spies headed by Dr Dorn (Paul Cavanagh) and Dr Ferris (John Abbott), along with an Englishwoman, Nurse Kruger (Mary Field), whose husband and son in Germany are being used to compel her obedience. Dr Dorn is unable to prevent Killian from passing on his information to General Devon (Lumsden Hare), but concocts an elaborate plan to discredit Killian by making it seem that his experiences have left him mentally unbalanced and violent. Soon, wherever the Captain goes, a dead body is sure to be found.... This is one weird little effort – sort of a war movie, sort of a horror movie, and sort of a suspense movie. It is supposed to be about Killian’s battle to attend a meeting of the brass at General Devon’s house – and to convince his superiors of his sanity – but it is the script’s amazingly gruesome details that linger when the film is over. Most of these come courtesy of Dr Ferris, who is both a Nazi and wanted as a “psychopathic killer” in Glasgow. Inflicted with the most unnerving pair of glasses ever, Dr Ferris has a habit of experimenting on anyone unfortunate enough to be brought to the hospital....all for “the advancement of science”, you understand. (“I see,” says Dorn, when Ferris admits to working on “nerve reflexes”, “that’s why you didn’t administer an anaesthetic.”) It is also Ferris who is responsible for the bodies left in poor Killian’s wake – “their heads almost torn from their bodies”. The really unsettling thing about all this is that it’s just a side-plot, with these particulars tossed at the viewer in the most casual way imaginable. The film’s inappropriate title, by the way, is the newspaper nickname bestowed upon Killian in reference to his extraordinary climbing abilities (he scales a near-sheer cliff in the course of the raid). Not that gorillas are known for their climbing abilities....but I guess “The Gibbon Man” didn’t give off quite the right vibe.

Hand Of Death (1976)

During the Qing Dynasty, betrayal from within their own ranks sees the disciples of the Shaolin Monastery and their master slaughtered and the few survivors scattered through the land. Yun Fei (Tan Tao-liang) is given the mission of killing the treacherous Shih Shao-feng (James Tien Chung), who has made himself master of a strategically located town and surrounded himself with both Manchu officers under the leadership of Tu Ching (Sammo Hung Kam-po) and a personal bodyguard of eight fighters, each skilled in a particular style of deadly combat. Hand Of Death is one of those films that gains importance retrospectively. It was one of the period martial arts films made early in his career by John Woo, and unites him for the only time with both Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan (who, this early in his career, is billed as Chen Yuang-long). Jackie has a supporting good guy role as a woodsman who has “played dumb” for three years while waiting for a chance to avenge his elder brother, killed by Shih’s men; while Sammo, dressed in less than flattering Manchu robes and afflicted with the scariest set of fake teeth you ever will see, is Shih’s chief flunky and a right bastard. John Woo himself plays Chang Yi, the leader of a local revolt whom Yun Fei must escort to safety. Hand Of Death is, frankly, a fairly clunky effort, particularly during the early martial arts scenes, which look more like blocking exercises than the real deal. (It doesn’t help that the print I saw is heavily overdubbed, with every arm movement, sword passage and spear thrust accompanied by thunderous WHOOOMP WHOOMP noises.) Things improve as the film goes on, thankfully, and the two major battles between Tan Tao-liang and James Tien Chung are both very enjoyable. Despite its age and setting, Hand Of Death is a typical John Woo film, with men finding redemption, women nearly non-existent, and most of the likeable characters dead by the end. For myself, the highlight of the film is when Yun Fei, having been left hanging upside-down and bound hand and foot after being beaten by Shih’s guards, manages to free himself by undoing the ropes around his feet with his teeth. Damn. I wish I had abs like that....

The Heavenly Body (1944)

Astronomer William S. Whitley (William Powell) is at the peak of his professional success, discovering a comet and predicting its collision with the moon. Whitley’s night-work puts a strain upon his marriage to Vicki (Hedy Lamarr), who despite her husband’s certain disapproval, allows her neighbour Nancy Potter (Spring Byington) to take her to astrologer Madame Sybil (Fay Bainter). To Whitley’s horror, Vicki soon becomes an unshakable devotee of astrology – going so far, when Mme Sybil predicts a new love in her life, to start planning the divorce.... Ugh! This “comedy” is so painful in so many different ways, it’s hard to pick which is the worst. We can start, though, with how plain unlikeable all the characters are. For a start, William S. Whitley is a condescending know-it-all. At the same time, Vicki is an annoying idiot. So far, they deserve each other. When James Craig shows up as the answer to Mme Sybil’s prediction, foreign correspondent turned air raid warden Lloyd Hunter, you feel rather sorry for him getting caught between these two....only then he turns out to be just as obnoxious as they are. (He’s the kind who, having travelled in other countries, thinks he knows more about them than the people who live there – and likes to correct them.) The film never bothers to explain Vicki’s sudden devotion to astrology; there’s not even any real implication that this is her passive-aggressive way of hitting back at her constantly absent husband. In the worst Bad Comedy way, her abrupt conversion is just ’coz. The curious thing about all this is that despite Whitley’s, and by extension the film’s, rude and jeering dismissal of astrology, as far as we learn Mme Sybil is generally correct in her predictions. As if realising belatedly that it has written itself into a corner in this respect, the script’s way of dismissing her is via an odd double-play: she is exposed not as a cheat, but as – gasp! – a hoarder. Yes, this was a war-time film, although you’d never guess it from the calm opulence of the characters’ lives; I suppose you’d call it “escapism”. The Heavenly Body does liven up for about five minutes during its home run, with the otherwise pointless introduction of a dozen vodka-swilling Russians and one disgustingly cute dog, but by then it’s far too little, far too late.

Hedda Gabler (1981)

Like the curate’s egg, it’s good in parts.... I actually have no idea what that expression means, but it is nevertheless a good description of this rather perfunctory rendering of Henrik Ibsen’s famous play. Diana Rigg is Hedda, dwindling into marriage with professorial hopeful George Tesman (Dennis Lill), allowing him to devote his life to making her happy, and imagining she is conferring a great favour on him by so doing. Already bored and disgusted with her oblivious husband, faced with a future of provincial visits and dinners, Hedda longs for “power over someone’s destiny”. Opportunity presents itself when she becomes the confidante of an old school acquaintance, Thea Elvsted (Elizabeth Bell). Thea has left her husband, discreetly, while she searches for her new love, Eilert Lǿvborg (Philip Bond), who is both Hedda’s former lover and Tesman’s professional rival. Having long wasted his talent in alcoholism, Lǿvborg has sobered up under Thea’s influence and produced a work of astonishing originality and power. Resenting Thea’s power over Lǿvborg, resenting even more her own comparative impotence, Hedda makes up her mind to play a significant role in the fates of these two people. A stag party at the house of Judge Brack (Alan Dobie) leads to a shameful relapse for Lǿvborg and, as Hedda sees her chance to strike, to disaster, scandal and death.... While never beginning to get at the ambiguities and mysteries of the play, this version of Hedda Gabler is just good enough to frustrate the hell out of you by not being better. It pulls off some scenes but not others; brings the characters to life at times, but not always. For example, Elizabeth Bell and Philip Bond are fine in their scenes together; but as Thea, Bell never manages to suggest the kind of desperation that could lead her to trust in Hedda, who she knows from bitter experience is manipulative and a bully and, frankly, not to be trusted. Similarly, Diana Rigg and Alan Dobie strike sparks as Hedda spars with the judge, mistakenly believing herself in charge of the situation; but at the same time, Dobie never really succeeds in conveying the selfish malevolance underlying the surface bonhomie of this petty power-broker. Still, the wreck of lives that comprises the final acts of the play cannot help but affect the viewer, whatever one makes of Hedda in general, and this Hedda in particular. A nice bonus in this version is a supporting performance by Kathleen Byron, as Tesman’s devoted Aunt Juliana – and while good manners prompts a reference to Black Narcissus here, honesty provokes a cry of, “Ooh, Twins Of Evil!”

Hero And The Terror (1988)

A Chuck Norris film with emotional depth!? Gedouddahere! In this one Chuck is Danny O’Brien, a cop unimaginatively nicknamed “Hero” after single-handedly taking down serial killer Simon Moon (Jack O’Halloran) – even more unimaginatively nicknamed “The Terror” – who killed twenty-two women, keeping their bodies hidden in order to “play with them”. As Moon serves out his time in a psychiatric facility, O’Brien must undergo therapy, unable to shake the memories and suffering recurrent nightmares over his discovery of Moon’s lair. Three years later, O’Brien’s life seems in order. His pregnant girlfriend, Kay (Brynn Thayer) – formally his therapist – moves into his apartment, and O’Brien proposes marriage. But then comes word that Moon has escaped. The van he was driving crashes into a river, and although his body isn’t found, he is presumed dead. But O’Brien knows better.... This was Chuck’s last collaboration with the Go-Go Boys, and it’s kind of an uneven send-off. There is less action than normal, and an uncertain air pervades the touchy-comic tone of the relationship between O’Brien and Kay; but the straightforward attempt to give this story more heart that usual is unexpected and interesting, if not always successful. However, there are parts of it I like: particularly its admission – and in a Chuck Norris film, too! – that experiences like Danny O’Brien’s are not just shrugged off with a laugh and a beer, but take a brutal toll. The high point of Hero And The Terror comes when O’Brien literally finds himself inside his nightmare, as he stumbles into Moon’s new lair; while the final chase/confrontation is quite tensely staged. I also like the heavily pregnant Kay’s restaurant meltdown, in which she declares herself to be “old, and fat, and ugly”, and has a cold-feet attack encompassing everything from the baby to her moving in with O’Brien to the sabbatical she’s taken from work. Of course, there are groan-inducing moments, too – plenty of them – like O’Brien fainting when Kay goes into labour, and the demise of O’Brien’s partner (Steve James). It’s not like the white hero’s black partner has to work all that hard to get himself killed, even under normal circumstances; but here Danny has Bill spend the night alone at the restored theatre that he’s pretty certain is the killer’s new hideout – and then Bill rushes to meet his manifest destiny by taking off his gun and leaving it lying on a seat while he works out by running laps of the auditorium. Where this film really crosses the line, though, is its absolutely shameless theft of four of the most famous chords in horror movie history: Simon Moon’s scenes are all underscored by the unmistakable sound of Harry Manfredini’s chh-chh-chh-chh. They don’t even pretend they aren’t doing it! – and it completely punctures the film’s efforts to be taken seriously. Still – points for trying.

The Heroes Of Telemark (1965)

Anthony Mann’s penultimate film as director is an account of the Norwegian underground’s attempts to destroy the German production of deuterium oxide, “heavy water”, needed in the creation of the atomic bomb. This compressed account of events, a year and a half’s conflict whittled down to three onscreen months, opens with resistance fighter Knud Straud (Richard Harris) coming into possession of microfilm detailing operations within the German-controlled Vemork plant near the town of Rjukan. Insufficiently knowledgeable himself, Straud takes the film to physics professor Rolf Pedersen (Kirk Douglas) who, despite his lack of interest in the resistance movement, recognises the grim significance of the film’s content and allows Straud to recruit him. The two men lead a band that commandeers a ferry, making a perilous journey to England. Their information is examined, and sent to America – to Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein – for final confirmation. Joining forces, the British and the Norwegian resistance plan a raid to destroy the plant. Disaster strikes when the gliders carrying the British commandoes crash when landing. The Norwegians go ahead anyway and by torturous effort, scale the unguarded cliff faces at one side of the plant, infiltrate it, and blow up the heavy water production room. But the Germans have contingency plans; and within two weeks production has resumed. As time passes and the heavy water accumulates, the Allies must consider ever more desperate alternatives.... The Heroes Of Telemark is an uneven film, suffering particularly from some clumsy scripting and insufficiently detailed characterisations. (And while this may be petty, it also suffers from Kirk Douglas’s accent. With Douglas surrounded predominantly by Brits and Scandinavians – and even the occasional authentic German, most notably Anton Diffring, being all steely-eyed and threatening as usual – his New York-bred tones are like the proverbial sore thumb.) Still, the film is not without its merits, and the subject matter certainly deserves attention – even if history now argues with some of the events depicted. (The documentary The True Heroes Of Telemark has much to say about the film’s inaccuracies – which, it might be pointed out, occasionally plays down rather than exaggerates the facts: the film has the British paratroopers all killed in the glider crash, when some of them were captured, tortured and executed.) The film was shot on location in Norway, at the actual site of events, and although the result is spectacular, it is also a mixed blessing, dramatically speaking, as the sheer grandeur of the story’s setting threatens to overwhelm its characters. One extraordinary sequence is an in-action ski-pursuit, achieved by hiring the Norwegian Olympic ski coach and putting him in charge of the camera; while the cliff-face assault upon the plant is depicted with tense and painful realism. Ultimately, however, the film’s primary virtue is its detached depiction of the shifting personal moralities of the main characters; its recognition of the difference between recognising the need for action, and taking action; and its investigation of where, in war time, a line can be drawn – or whether it can be drawn at all. Rolf Pedersen is at first quite cynically passive, content to ride out the Occupation without rocking the boat; his initial response to Knud’s attempt to recruit him is to point out that the main outcome of Knud’s own activities is a lot of shot hostages – a charge the film never refutes, by the way. But Pedersen far more than the others understands the magnitude of the danger; and over time it is he who becomes the truly ruthless one, set upon destroying the heavy water at any cost; while Knud and Anna (Ulla Jacobsson), Rolf’s ex-wife and another resistance fighter, begin to question the necessity of the mission, unable to accept the civilian casualties that must result from pursuing it, or Rolf’s word-picture of a world where Germany has the bomb. The final attack upon the heavy water requires the bombing of the ferry on which it is being transported – and upon which two of the local passengers are the widow of the one man killed during the original raid on the plant, and her new baby. Even Rolf, it turns out, has his limits....

Highly Dangerous (1950)

Hitler’s Children (1943)

Holiday Affair (1949)

War widow Connie Ennis (Janet Leigh), working as a comparison shopper to support her young son, Timothy (Gordon Gebert), inadvertently gets toy salesman Steve Mason (Robert Mitchum) fired. Feeling guilty, Connie agrees to have lunch with Steve – hotdogs and peanuts at Central Park Zoo – and as she spends time with him, finds herself beginning to be torn between her growing feeling for him, her almost-commitment to long-time beau, lawyer Carl Davis (Wendell Corey), and her memories of her tragically brief marriage.... This is a rather sweet example of one of the oldest tropes in romantic comedy film-making, the woman meeting her “soul mate” after becoming engaged to Mr Steady. Where it scores points over most of its competition – and I can think of quite a few recent films that could have learnt a lot from this one – is in playing entirely fair by all of its characters. This is particularly true in the case of Carl Davis. Instead of taking the soft option of making Carl obviously the wrong man for Connie, he’s an attractive marital prospect: nice, and smart, and genuinely attached to Timothy. He just....isn’t the right guy. The casting of Wendell Corey is interesting here. Corey could be terribly dull on screen, but they don’t even play that card: instead, the screenplay generously pitches to his delicious way with a sardonic line of dialogue; a talent not exploited nearly enough over the actor’s career. Holiday Affair is highlighted by two marvellous set-pieces, first what ought to be, but miraculously isn’t, the world’s most uncomfortable Christmas dinner – attended by Connie, her son, the two men who want to marry her, and her late husband’s parents – and secondly, a scene at a police station after Steve is mistakenly arrested as a mugger, a sequence stolen by Harry Morgan as the desk sergeant who has to sort the whole mess out. There is never really much doubt about how the various relationships in Holiday Affair are going to work themselves out, but the journey is a lot of fun.

Hotel Reserve (1944)

The proverbial luck of mob strong-arm man Jonathan “Lucky” Wilson (Robert Sterling) runs out when Lieutenant McFarley (Paul Kelly) and Sergeant Brent (Don Costello) persuade some of his monetary victims to sing. Apprehended, Wilson makes a break for it, only to take a bullet in the shoulder as he flees. He nevertheless makes it as far as the Connecticut countryside before collapsing, where he is found and taken in by the Millers, a farming family. Ordered by his boss, Tony Berolli (Reed Hadley), to stay where he is – what could be a better hideout? – Wilson unexpectedly finds himself drawn to the Millers and their simple lifestyle, and particularly to the lovely elder daughter, Pauline (Marsha Hunt).... The plot’s been done to death, of course, but the main problem with this re-working of the old hood-with-a-heart-of-gold chestnut is trying to believe baby-faced Robert Sterling as an intimidating mobster. He may talk like Bogart, and dress like Robert Montgomery – both of whom did much better in similar roles – but really, he’s not fooling anyone; he comes across like a kid playing dress-up in his big brother’s clothes. Moreover, the film asks us to accept not just the magnitude of the Millers’ countrified blindness, but also Wilson’s equally staggering citified ignorance – would you believe he doesn’t know where eggs come from? Still, this slight comedy-drama is worth sticking with for the sequence when Wilson’s police adversaries catch up him, but in the face of the Millers’ sheer niceness, find themselves quite unable to give their quarry away. Trapped on the wrong side of a swollen creek, the three men end up sitting down in company with their oblivious hosts to the world’s most uncomfortable luncheon. Marsha Hunt is certainly worth a man’s reformation as Pauline; Henry Travers and Fay Holden lend credibility to the Millers; and Virginia Weidler has another of her trademark “kid sister” roles. However, it is Paul Kelly as the sardonic McFarley and Don Costello as his boater-hatted, sad-eyed offsider who come away with the honours.

Invader (1996)

More than twenty years after it was sent to Mars and subsequently disappeared, a Viking 2 lander is located in the Californian desert in a highly restricted military zone. The lander is transported to an abandoned army testing facility, where NASA scientist Case Montgomery (Cotter Smith) calls in exo-biologist Dr Grazia Scott (Deidre O’Connell) to help him investigate. The two, along with Case’s NASA colleague, Michael Perkett (Leland Orser), examine the lander and determine that it has been modified, with extra housings attached to the outside. Gracia analyses the dust from the outside of the lander, and confirms that it has indeed been on Mars – and that its presence on Earth can only be the result of extraterrestrial intervention. As the scientists are struggling to come to terms with this realisation, the military arrives. Colonel Pratt (Robert Wisdom) announces that the lander is a matter of national security and that the scientists are forbidden to have any further contact with it. They respond by barricading themselves in with it. A furious Pratt orders his men to cut open the door. As Case tries to download the contents of the lander’s computer into NASA’s system, Grazia hears a noise....and something erupts from one of the housings on the lander. Grazia shrieks for the men outside not to open the door, but they take no notice; and the next moment, an alien life-form is loose within the facility.... Yes, Invader is yet another post-Alien dark-corridors-and-ducts film – but for once you shouldn’t let that put you off. Lacking a budget, a name cast, expensive special effects, impressive sets – well, lacking pretty much everything, really – the film-makers compensated as best they could by serving up – an intelligent script. No, honestly! Perhaps I can best praise Invader by telling you what it doesn’t have: career professionals who behave like tantrum-throwing children; characters advancing the plot by acting stupidly; a male and a female scientist who have, or had, a personal relationship; a psychotic and/or homicidally hard-line senior military officer; explosions in place of ideas. It’s also unusually free of references to other films, even the one it’s clearly inspired by. Well, almost free. There’s an alien autopsy scene that suggests a fondness for John Carpenter’s version of The Thing, and the two scientists are called “Montgomery” and “Scott”, which might be an allusion, or just simple word association. No, what we have here is a thoughtful and interesting little film – with the emphasis on “little”. The budget for this thing must have been nearly non-existent, and what money they did have obviously went on the alien, which in its adult form is pretty damn cool. (In the end they give us too clear a look at it for its own good, but the visual power of that shot, as the newly escaped alien stops and stares up at the full moon in the night sky, more than makes up for any revealed shortcomings.) The story progresses through logical steps, some good tension is generated, and the characters react intelligently as their circumstances alter. I particularly like the evolving relationship between Grazia Scott and Colonel Pratt: initially the two diametric poles, with fairly clichéd viewpoints (she wants to save it for science and communicate with it, he wants to blast it off the planet in the name of national security), both of them soften their stances as the emergency worsens, develop respect for one another’s views and abilities, and end up working together to solve a crisis. Invader does a lot right – a lot – and then.... And then it goes and ruins everything, with an incredibly abrupt and downbeat ending. Well, perhaps “ruins” is putting it a bit strongly; within the context of the story, the ending is actually valid; but it sure isn’t the one we wanted. The performances of the three leads are all solid and convincing, with Deidre O’Connell making a very refreshing female scientist. I also like Raoul O’Connell (related?) as poor Private Jeffers, who’s having the worst day of his entire life.... Invader also features a baby-faced Ryan Phillippe as – get this – “Private Ryan”!

The Unknown Movies Page provides both a review (under the film’s alternative title, Lifeform) and an explanation for the ending. To which I can only respond – “Bugger....”

I Take This Woman (1940)

Georgi Gragore (Hedy Lamarr) travels to the Yucatan with her married lover, Phil Mayberry (Kent Taylor), where he plans to get a quick divorce; but he reneges when his wife, Sandra (Mona Barrie), threatens a divorce suit of his own that will ruin both his name and his career. On the journey home, a despairing Georgi attempts suicide, but is stopped by Dr Karl Decker (Spencer Tracy). Back in New York and at as loss, Georgi finds her way to Decker’s free clinic on the East Side and gets a job there. Decker, already smitten, soon falls in love with her. Georgi agrees to marry Decker, but their relationship is endangered when he feels compelled to try and give her the lifestyle she is accustomed to, and when his insistence that she not run away from her past throws her into company with her old society friends – including Phil Mayberry, who has obtained his divorce.... I Take This Woman had a disastrous production history: the shoot dragged on for over eighteen months as it lost first Josef von Sternberg and then Frank Borzage as director, ending up with journeyman W.S. Van Dyke II, who re-shot nearly the entire thing but was unable to enliven this rather tired tale of a woman who knows her husband is worth a hundred of the heel she’s stuck on, but goes on being stuck on him anyway. The real problem with this film is that it needed to be made by Warners, not MGM. Everything’s fine as long as the story is being played out in nightclubs and at premieres, but it falls on its face as soon as it tries to present us with “the East Side”. MGM never could do poor convincingly: everything’s far too spacious and clean, and the people are embarrassing stereotypes. (Case in point: Willie Best as – God help us! – “Sambo”, opening line: “I’ll be an ape’s uncle!”) In fact, you can tell this is an MGM production from the moment Georgi puts on her mink coat to commit suicide! Actually, all jokes aside, this film enters some fairly worrying territory with its implication that the “correct” response of any “sensitive” woman to male treachery is a suicide attempt. Still, Tracy and Lamarr are worth watching, and the supporting cast is terrific, particularly Verree Teasdale as Georgi’s hyperactive best friend (she gets all of Charles MacArthur’s best lines), and Frances Drake as an elegantly parasitic nightclubber. Larraine Day has a brief early role as the film’s second suicidally-inclined female, and Jack Carson gets one line as the husband of one of Decker’s patients.

King Solomon’s Mines (1937)