PETER SELLERS OVERTAKES WOODY ALLEN'S 'WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT?'

<p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFgaNdDtpKQBZNGBIFPTHn9GCsUjYRCphyz82LHKKWOlXOwBVHYRZJderdm0agJAL6bNRVlF-6DrnnNameZnyxA3za1pXHjGGW3-UD6vHunb-80ErpTEPr0-zg9nvipHI2xC6xYeRc7gCVDzc_zter3XtwXK9tzsBQb7gSDiCIY4CLG57MVks3w4r8rH6s/s1428/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-24%20at%2011.25.41%20AM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="940" data-original-width="1428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFgaNdDtpKQBZNGBIFPTHn9GCsUjYRCphyz82LHKKWOlXOwBVHYRZJderdm0agJAL6bNRVlF-6DrnnNameZnyxA3za1pXHjGGW3-UD6vHunb-80ErpTEPr0-zg9nvipHI2xC6xYeRc7gCVDzc_zter3XtwXK9tzsBQb7gSDiCIY4CLG57MVks3w4r8rH6s/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-24%20at%2011.25.41%20AM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT? Year: 1965 Rating: **</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Then strictly standup-comedian Woody Allen got his cinematic kickstart writing the screenplay for what turned out to be a smash hit, especially in England where WHAT'S UP PUSSYCAT? was made and takes place, foreshadowing the womanizer sub-genre of ALFIE while setting up the kind of neurotic-guy jokes that Allen would become famous for...<br><br>Sadly, he has the smallest role here, as the geeky friend of central star Peter O'Toole... the latter who visually fits the role of a fashion designer that every woman in London's Swinging 60's falls for, but being a intense dramatic actor who ignited his fame in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, he's even more miscast for the fumbling-comedy template than the otherwise brilliant comedic actor who basically ruins the movie...</p><p></p><p><span></span></p>

british, capucine, comedy, paula prentiss, peter o'toole, peter sellers, romy schneider, ursula andress, woody allen

PETER SELLERS OVERTAKES WOODY ALLEN'S 'WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT?'

Title: WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT? Year: 1965 Rating: ** Then strictly standup-comedian Woody Allen got his cinematic kickstart writing the scr...

BLAKE EDWARDS REDIRECTING PETER SELLERS FOR 'THE PARTY'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjudMi6ZX6doQvwNDtFDL_H4hGw6JQxqm2Ee8NQN6hk-3-H3hmNkQIvlLQN3WH-9Hp7DP6yAz-Mqo5PAe2AdU_iYFPsmNJwixDfuAOda3cKMlMd2IrnlYVMNT-3LtV5K80a4NV8JppeTs6lRKIpoAuZKCPhyIY4k7KnfQL37pY0AByjkY8K9FBlI0JbK84_/s1238/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-22%20at%201.14.42%20PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="786" data-original-width="1238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjudMi6ZX6doQvwNDtFDL_H4hGw6JQxqm2Ee8NQN6hk-3-H3hmNkQIvlLQN3WH-9Hp7DP6yAz-Mqo5PAe2AdU_iYFPsmNJwixDfuAOda3cKMlMd2IrnlYVMNT-3LtV5K80a4NV8JppeTs6lRKIpoAuZKCPhyIY4k7KnfQL37pY0AByjkY8K9FBlI0JbK84_/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-22%20at%201.14.42%20PM.png"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: THE PARTY Year: 1968 Rating: ****</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Fans of Blake Edward’s PINK PANTHER movies starring Peter Sellers will find similarities between Indian actor Hrundi V. Bakshi and Jacques Clouseau: he destroys the English language (in the opinion of all impatient/uptight characters) and is able to turn any location into a falling-domino calamity...<br> <br> First the movie set where he plays an army bugler who refuses to die after which, behind the scenes, he blows up an entire city/location when the cameras aren’t rolling. <br> </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>

blake edwards, comedy, counter-culture, denny miller, gavin macleod, peter sellers, sixties, slapstick, steve franken

BLAKE EDWARDS REDIRECTING PETER SELLERS FOR 'THE PARTY'

Title: THE PARTY Year: 1968 Rating: **** Fans of Blake Edward’s PINK PANTHER movies starring Peter Sellers will find similarities between ...

SUE LYON IN STANLEY KUBRICK'S 'LOLITA' WITH JAMES MASON

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDVpEkpeE2BVXgENe707BxE-oFcCJPRSzNo3EahLGAJnzVcLa55sVtu0H5-S4Rd0B9xPJt4v2lSR9rpvwxVDxxFKyc_ThDRzbV0RdcMTcHQwghqdybHJykwr61_Cx4tp9q2l0mpRquFFIZbg7-3e1qcj7_X0wFZeYMN08toTHNm0-L7yxJsX9Lw3StUznk/s1616/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-22%20at%204.10.49%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="918" data-original-width="1616" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDVpEkpeE2BVXgENe707BxE-oFcCJPRSzNo3EahLGAJnzVcLa55sVtu0H5-S4Rd0B9xPJt4v2lSR9rpvwxVDxxFKyc_ThDRzbV0RdcMTcHQwghqdybHJykwr61_Cx4tp9q2l0mpRquFFIZbg7-3e1qcj7_X0wFZeYMN08toTHNm0-L7yxJsX9Lw3StUznk/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-22%20at%204.10.49%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: LOLITA Year: 1962 Rating: ****</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Between Stanley Kubrick's financial gig on Kirk Douglas's epic SPARTACUS and the immense Cold War dark comedy DR. STRANGELOVE is the subtle yet brilliant LOLITA, perhaps his most conventionally filmed and least visually offbeat since the storyline takes care of all that... </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Middle-aged British college professor James Mason falls for the titular Sue Lyon, whose mom, Shelley Winters, bounces around a suburban East Coast dream house, stealing all the first act scenes in what feels like a short film in itself... </p><p><span></span></p>

dark comedy, exploitation, james mason, jazz score, jerry stovin, peter sellers, road movie, shelley winters, sixties, stanley kubrick, sue lyon

SUE LYON IN STANLEY KUBRICK'S 'LOLITA' WITH JAMES MASON

Title: LOLITA Year: 1962 Rating: **** Between Stanley Kubrick's financial gig on Kirk Douglas's epic SPARTACUS and the immense Cold ...

PETER SELLERS GETS COMPLETELY VICIOUS FOR 'NEVER LET GO'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ25rr2pF2qJtlCIQVTUScOKR4NHlt0dJXzRnFWw_iMDJMApT9Iy619nMrAsX8LmmTZPclzVX9Tm8q7LYTSlZQVl74khQYzKNpCBv0Sk-ho5u-t6En76jk9O842R87u_Ec-tjDa94e1rjwsY6X07wO_u6FKF-127WIB7mVAKq4gyZPn04HrEzRw6yvUr4g/s1570/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-21%20at%208.17.30%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="964" data-original-width="1570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ25rr2pF2qJtlCIQVTUScOKR4NHlt0dJXzRnFWw_iMDJMApT9Iy619nMrAsX8LmmTZPclzVX9Tm8q7LYTSlZQVl74khQYzKNpCBv0Sk-ho5u-t6En76jk9O842R87u_Ec-tjDa94e1rjwsY6X07wO_u6FKF-127WIB7mVAKq4gyZPn04HrEzRw6yvUr4g/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-21%20at%208.17.30%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>David Lodge and Peter Sellers in NEVER LET GO Year: 1960 Rating: ****</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>A British Neo Noir cross between DEATH OF A SALESMAN before and DEATH WISH after, John Guillerman made NEVER LET GO the same year as THE DAY THEY ROBBED THE BANK OF ENGLAND, only a car's worth much less than an entire country's bullion vault... </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>But don't tell that to desperate cosmetics salesman Richard Todd, whose old fashioned, pseudo-charming client-pressuring style goes against the company's new-fangled <i>scientific methods</i>... </p><p><span></span></p>

adam faith, british neo noir, british new wave, carol white, crime, cult, david gregory, david lodge, elizabeth sellars, john guillermin, peter sellers, revenge, richard todd, teddy boys, thriller

PETER SELLERS GETS COMPLETELY VICIOUS FOR 'NEVER LET GO'

David Lodge and Peter Sellers in NEVER LET GO Year: 1960 Rating: **** A British Neo Noir cross between DEATH OF A SALESMAN before and DEATH ...

PETER SELLERS, BRITT EKLAND & VICTOR MATURE 'AFTER THE FOX'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKqYQkEdtVqxTAGPGKeXOklrATC3-h0VgDlbGyW1aEySJazV2elTdLoGI-f9rh5JIl_HmYfx5FFRb4bBmmclXB5PM2fSXcEpZl14RxBHaISLCnFmHlxNH5g5JhmY7T4oT4FLkl2duvS6u2LEFbXFH2fOlw7628eoMaoV_fM82mxOqxUIzMUu7r1V78P20T/s1962/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-21%20at%205.17.29%20PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1170" data-original-width="1962" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKqYQkEdtVqxTAGPGKeXOklrATC3-h0VgDlbGyW1aEySJazV2elTdLoGI-f9rh5JIl_HmYfx5FFRb4bBmmclXB5PM2fSXcEpZl14RxBHaISLCnFmHlxNH5g5JhmY7T4oT4FLkl2duvS6u2LEFbXFH2fOlw7628eoMaoV_fM82mxOqxUIzMUu7r1V78P20T/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-21%20at%205.17.29%20PM.png"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: AFTER THE FOX Year: 1966 Rates: ***</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Victor Mature plays an aged, has-been actor who spends so much time bickering with agent Martin Balsam about doing or <i>not</i> doing a French existential film, you'll simply want things to narrow into what the <i>real</i> movie's about as AFTER THE FOX doesn't mean <i>what follows</i> but <i>who's followin</i>g Peter Sellers' criminal named Fox, who broke out of prison, in disguise, and there's plenty of humor but not enough laughs... <br></p><p></p><p></p><p>Shame since the cinematography's so gorgeous, a satire on the pretentious side of 1960's French New Wave cinema, ironically directed by 1950's minimalist BICYCLE THIEVES auteur Vittorio De Sica, not allowing either his funny guy (Sellers) or straight man (Mature) enough time together... </p><p><span></span></p>

akim tamiroff, brit ekland, british, comedy, cult, french, heist, jailbreak, maria grazia buccella, peter sellers, satire, sixties, victor mature

PETER SELLERS, BRITT EKLAND & VICTOR MATURE 'AFTER THE FOX'

Title: AFTER THE FOX Year: 1966 Rates: *** Victor Mature plays an aged, has-been actor who spends so much time bickering with agent Martin B...

PETER SELLERS GHOSTING THROUGH 'TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwybwwM93KjU26nm8g2ZR3c_SkQEhPA0GIlhOmJUKZcZXTPpz8dJwW7MJ4IsUiaQVuLJ8azalcxJS5VGRF8AvGDUYRoh84kpxjW7OC2nErAWM82-4ZBVeYesbsA658riprQnEfmt2UibFSXbkkLi2knJ8fthu1J8T7Z9Xu24W1vJmue0ZNj9-bfe5iO0s9/s1370/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-22%20at%207.38.53%20PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="1370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwybwwM93KjU26nm8g2ZR3c_SkQEhPA0GIlhOmJUKZcZXTPpz8dJwW7MJ4IsUiaQVuLJ8azalcxJS5VGRF8AvGDUYRoh84kpxjW7OC2nErAWM82-4ZBVeYesbsA658riprQnEfmt2UibFSXbkkLi2knJ8fthu1J8T7Z9Xu24W1vJmue0ZNj9-bfe5iO0s9/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-22%20at%207.38.53%20PM.png"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER Year: 1983 Rating: **1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Peter Sellers' trophy wife Lynne Frederick not only inherited all his money but was able to successfully sue the movie studio for TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER in which Sellers as Inspector Clouseau is brought back by use of deleted-scene-footage from THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN...<br><br>As the real star is Joanna Lumley, trying her best in the present-time-story searching for the infamously klutzy inspector in-between those cut/paste Clouseau moments that, particularly a scene with the otherwise hilarious Harvey Korman, are tediously overlong and painfully unfunny...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><span></span></p>

capucine, comedy, david niven, denise crosby, eighties, harvey korman, joanna lumley, peter sellers, pink panther, robert loggia

PETER SELLERS GHOSTING THROUGH 'TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER'

Title: TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER Year: 1983 Rating: **1/2 Peter Sellers' trophy wife Lynne Frederick not only inherited all his money bu...

BLAKE EDWARDS RETURNS WITH 'CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER'

<p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIlH3cajaU8JlDifzQv9tgG6E3Om7zhs9QJHLGciYVqjkS4JnU-kZAGZrC6nsFC68-ZnSiVfneGNhDmlid9rekn907FiaPSy0fCCdQ5_jLqRMjjGF1g6sYpLWmw0r9Mz2eKqIN0lvTi-Mc2ee8rW3zimWG-MgSM905E_cyRoICFhSIwGrc1kHeHxDEOkWF/s1404/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-21%20at%201.40.55%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="710" data-original-width="1404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIlH3cajaU8JlDifzQv9tgG6E3Om7zhs9QJHLGciYVqjkS4JnU-kZAGZrC6nsFC68-ZnSiVfneGNhDmlid9rekn907FiaPSy0fCCdQ5_jLqRMjjGF1g6sYpLWmw0r9Mz2eKqIN0lvTi-Mc2ee8rW3zimWG-MgSM905E_cyRoICFhSIwGrc1kHeHxDEOkWF/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-21%20at%201.40.55%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title:  CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER Year: 1983 Rating: ***</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Blake Edwards held onto the Peter Sellers legacy for two entire films, beginning with TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER in which Inspector Jacques Clouseau is infamously brought back to life...<br> <br>This was done using deleted scenes from THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN: a lousy patchwork with cameos by original PANTHER alumni David Niven and Capucine with a forgettable subplot involving Robert Loggia as a mobster... </p><p></p><p></p>

blake edwards, comedy, david niven, denise crosby, eighties, franchise, harvey korman, herbert lom, pink panther, robert loggia, robert wagner, ted wass

BLAKE EDWARDS RETURNS WITH 'CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER'

Title:  CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER Year: 1983 Rating: *** Blake Edwards held onto the Peter Sellers legacy for two entire films, beginning wi...

PETER SELLERS FINISHING ON 'REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER'

<p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijT09xht5Do2Xn8PGYnSs6SEpC7tIFN6VJje9YmfoTTWOAmJCvsIS6K_TmdSzmi9BSMkPTinmEXT2IEK6AD0Qmo9vm8guAf3-BOXfPuDQO8u3ARc_FHJsZS4iX92x5ar403XloVwOoo97gLbLIjh6OD6mvNh4oBvvXp8ta-VIrfESeZMll4MsphbD7s3n4/s1676/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-21%20at%201.08.00%20PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1014" data-original-width="1676" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijT09xht5Do2Xn8PGYnSs6SEpC7tIFN6VJje9YmfoTTWOAmJCvsIS6K_TmdSzmi9BSMkPTinmEXT2IEK6AD0Qmo9vm8guAf3-BOXfPuDQO8u3ARc_FHJsZS4iX92x5ar403XloVwOoo97gLbLIjh6OD6mvNh4oBvvXp8ta-VIrfESeZMll4MsphbD7s3n4/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-21%20at%201.08.00%20PM.png"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER Year: 1978 Rating: **1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The last PINK PANTHER movie starring Peter Sellers was the first time he was completely invested with director Blake Edwards as co-producer, and the epic espionage of the previous STRIKES AGAIN is replaced with a somewhat contained GODFATHER homage/mafia story in which Robert Webber, threatened by Robert Loggia, has to kill Clouseau...<br><br>As this REVENGE (which is actually against Clouseau) also borrows from Sellers' best turn as the inspector from SHOT IN THE DARK... involving a pretty blonde attached to a shady rich criminal... <br></p><p><span></span></p>

blake edwards, comedy, dyan cannon, franchise, mafia, peter sellers, pink panther, robert loggia, robert webber, seventies, sue lloyd

PETER SELLERS FINISHING ON 'REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER'

Title: REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER Year: 1978 Rating: **1/2 The last PINK PANTHER movie starring Peter Sellers was the first time he was com...

PETER SELLERS STRIKES IN 'THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilqmhOlrToY8b1RM0ykwjVn95wYlkafCXT0qQP28jiA-drdhk1UIeXIFHO04orSuY_pU8XZHNdR_IQAfNEZVHgG0AZvD5QiTGv4SB-arKsqDtIiE_bbtGqNNRWQ9iLI8iB0P5AHbaSgXgIX3Y5Ev0e0or17mVdtvcim3zM8zq77syH-MvLOkZFVRn8dqTp/s1696/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-19%20at%206.50.03%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="866" data-original-width="1696" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilqmhOlrToY8b1RM0ykwjVn95wYlkafCXT0qQP28jiA-drdhk1UIeXIFHO04orSuY_pU8XZHNdR_IQAfNEZVHgG0AZvD5QiTGv4SB-arKsqDtIiE_bbtGqNNRWQ9iLI8iB0P5AHbaSgXgIX3Y5Ev0e0or17mVdtvcim3zM8zq77syH-MvLOkZFVRn8dqTp/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-19%20at%206.50.03%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u> Title: THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN from 1976 Rating: ***</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>There’s a pivotal sequence where Herbert Lom’s Inspector Dreyfus — having just broke out of an insane asylum — helps a nefarious villain escape from a train by use of a helicopter, followed by several more breakouts and a kidnapping...<br> <br> It seems writer/director Blake Edwards got an itch to make something beyond a slapstick comedy, but Peter Sellers, as the new Chief Inspector Clouseau, won’t let that happen... at least not entirely...<br> </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>

action, blake edwards, burt kwouk, franchise, herbert lom, lesley-anne down, leslie anne-down, peter sellers, pink panther, sequel, seventies, spy

PETER SELLERS STRIKES IN 'THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN'

Title: THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN from 1976 Rating: *** There’s a pivotal sequence where Herbert Lom’s Inspector Dreyfus — having just ...

PETER SELLERS RETURNS IN 'THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER'

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div> <p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV3-7_hA4DKGjPILmWcXx0LQhxveS8mh7uOkPVRGb5o08KN-MAAFBQpgjIm-LNo7Fl-KcWgmuovnoTtQrqX5JU7eYSh-fKphhMXYYoCmnvSPt1dP8Z3XYTmlFCmkEiSS5DCqkCgngREAye8WZpPjwdhMkvfEfm2KobZSRxBjYtmQYoqOmG8oONlJW2kpoO/s1748/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-19%20at%201.11.53%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="1748" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV3-7_hA4DKGjPILmWcXx0LQhxveS8mh7uOkPVRGb5o08KN-MAAFBQpgjIm-LNo7Fl-KcWgmuovnoTtQrqX5JU7eYSh-fKphhMXYYoCmnvSPt1dP8Z3XYTmlFCmkEiSS5DCqkCgngREAye8WZpPjwdhMkvfEfm2KobZSRxBjYtmQYoqOmG8oONlJW2kpoO/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-19%20at%201.11.53%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER Year: 1975 Rating: ***</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Sir Charles Litton in the original 1964 classic THE PINK PANTHER was a sophisticated womanizing jewel thief played by David Niven, who, along with his nephew and girlfriend, kept one step ahead of Inspector Jacques Clouseau...<br> <br> Skip ten years: Litton has morphed into a younger, cagier, more stealthily and adventurous fortune hunting maverick played by Christopher Plummer, lifting the priceless Pink Panther jewel from a supposedly theft-proof museum in an exciting prologue involving a nail-biting getaway: which is the set-up for Litton, bringing the titular PINK PANTHER name back with purpose, but where’s Clouseau?<br> </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>

action, andré maranne, blake edwards, burt kwouk, catherine schell, christopher plummer, comedy, david lodge, franchise, herbert lom, peter sellers, pink panther, seventies

PETER SELLERS RETURNS IN 'THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER'

Title: THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER Year: 1975 Rating: *** Sir Charles Litton in the original 1964 classic THE PINK PANTHER was a soph...

PETER SELLERS TAKES 'A SHOT IN THE DARK' WITH ELKE SOMMER

<p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpU4m0d1C-2dTSYR7ihfRIKU8oinM_cASIJGdraZkAIixqVShOkmEG2pyZahY924JnrCo0ezyg2Zio18r_XuoHnDC2YCarLM5YsEJrkycY4h9rcLOQFXMb52jV3b4-icy274P_KiOlxgizwRKJh6yoED5l5FAQMSrpXv25h-q1K8EX7v8aYSArAuW5NXre/s2060/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-19%20at%206.34.09%20AM%202%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1174" data-original-width="2060" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpU4m0d1C-2dTSYR7ihfRIKU8oinM_cASIJGdraZkAIixqVShOkmEG2pyZahY924JnrCo0ezyg2Zio18r_XuoHnDC2YCarLM5YsEJrkycY4h9rcLOQFXMb52jV3b4-icy274P_KiOlxgizwRKJh6yoED5l5FAQMSrpXv25h-q1K8EX7v8aYSArAuW5NXre/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-19%20at%206.34.09%20AM%202%202.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: A SHOT IN THE DARK Year: 1964 Rating: ***1/2</u><br></td></tr></tbody></table><p>While Inspector Clouseau was dropped into the romantic-comedy-heist <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2025/06/OGPP.html">THE PINK PANTHER</a> with Peter Sellers stealing the movie from lead actor David Niven, the sequel...where he's finally the central character... has him crashing what's an otherwise serious stage-adapted murder-mystery/whodunnit... <br><br>Yet there's a romantic-comedy element here too, with Sellers helping adorable millionaire's maid, Elke Sommer, seeming guilty beyond belief in the classic noir fashion: not only winding up with a smoking gun and a dead body, but with another dead body and a bloody knife... <br></p><p><span></span></p>

blake edwards, body count, bryan forbes, comedy, david lodge, elke sommer, george sanders, herbert lom, mystery, peter sellers, pink panther, sixties, vanda godsell

PETER SELLERS TAKES 'A SHOT IN THE DARK' WITH ELKE SOMMER

Title: A SHOT IN THE DARK Year: 1964 Rating: ***1/2 While Inspector Clouseau was dropped into the romantic-comedy-heist THE PINK PANTHER wi...

PETER SELLERS STEALS 'THE PINK PANTHER' FROM DAVID NIVEN

<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-BLc0lBrBIMVFuECq7voBGCog8Qabyq03SY2Sf-gLoiIs-gaGTdeIITaHxoD2HK7i62CuaglYWWVCM8fFggs95Kpw6bQrXBzngXlcWudkJdo6Cuc505v0VNcD7NSvP9kDUfeG7lz2gV90F4lh0-ot91loWANg5KF3ViNB36n7EjOnqr9C77hjWL6TMCVy/s1412/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-15%20at%207.17.35%20PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="670" data-original-width="1412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-BLc0lBrBIMVFuECq7voBGCog8Qabyq03SY2Sf-gLoiIs-gaGTdeIITaHxoD2HK7i62CuaglYWWVCM8fFggs95Kpw6bQrXBzngXlcWudkJdo6Cuc505v0VNcD7NSvP9kDUfeG7lz2gV90F4lh0-ot91loWANg5KF3ViNB36n7EjOnqr9C77hjWL6TMCVy/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-15%20at%207.17.35%20PM.png"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: THE PINK PANTHER Year: 1963 Rating: ***1/2</u><br></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Blake Edwards' original THE PINK PANTHER refers to a diamond that drives the overall character-driven plotline of a suave diamond thief romancing a rich princess: so David Niven's the main player while Peter Ustinov was originally cast as his French foil, Inspector Clouseau...<br><br>And while it's impossible imaging anyone but Peter Sellers in the iconic role, it technically makes sense that someone not as young, likeable and downright hilarious would have existed within the original/intended storyline...</p><p><span></span></p>

blake edwards, caper, capucine, claudia cardinale, colin gordon, comedy, con man, david niven, fran jeffries, heist, peter sellers, pink panther, robert wagner, romance, sixties

PETER SELLERS STEALS 'THE PINK PANTHER' FROM DAVID NIVEN

Title: THE PINK PANTHER Year: 1963 Rating: ***1/2 Blake Edwards' original THE PINK PANTHER refers to a diamond that drives the overall c...

EDWARD G. ROBINSON IN 'A BULLET FOR JOEY' WITH AUDREY TOTTER

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiVGGAb3a1GLAL6395-mvZ8Qa6DcUt-NWXhX_s8DND1WMXzbjVgv0KhUO3IhpW7nztAkfff1WL0S780qr8zLb47rouVbWnTeTRe8g83SHr0jr0F-4W7Sw7MrvfavKEOugrlcthzMyZ3e9zlC6MZJogOpPFKcwcsz0ZINHPrDfc4xROdJXaSS4IJyILRxln/s1902/1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1074" data-original-width="1902" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiVGGAb3a1GLAL6395-mvZ8Qa6DcUt-NWXhX_s8DND1WMXzbjVgv0KhUO3IhpW7nztAkfff1WL0S780qr8zLb47rouVbWnTeTRe8g83SHr0jr0F-4W7Sw7MrvfavKEOugrlcthzMyZ3e9zlC6MZJogOpPFKcwcsz0ZINHPrDfc4xROdJXaSS4IJyILRxln/s16000/1.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Audrey Totter in A BULLET FOR JOEY Year: 1955 Rating: ***1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Two groundbreaking crime genre actors from the 1930's team up in a movie that could have only come out in the middle-1950's since A BULLET FOR JOEY, while sounding like a gangster flick concerning crooked union bosses, is a bonafide Cold War Thriller, or in this case, a Cold <i>Noir</i> Thriller...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>With Edward G. Robinson billed first but hardly the main character as an inspector/investigator in charge of trying to stop bigwig criminal George Raft from entering America through Canada, where he had flown to from Europe, where he was in hiding because of...<br></p><p><span></span></p>

cold war, edward g. robinson, fifties, film noir or melodrama, george dolenz, george raft, peter hansen, peter van eyck, sandy sanders, thriller

EDWARD G. ROBINSON IN 'A BULLET FOR JOEY' WITH AUDREY TOTTER

Audrey Totter in A BULLET FOR JOEY Year: 1955 Rating: ***1/2 Two groundbreaking crime genre actors from the 1930's team up in a movie th...

EDWARD G. ROBINSON IN 'BLACK TUESDAY' WITH PETER GRAVES

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLsr2xPZRlVR6CW-WjB5o7xr8m1JZ_4Qi3N_dKEXny3hVuGVoN5ro0ZvG3aa53lMeSbFDVBDh4vvcH1ZO5zZe8m3cfkcYzOeBg8QXDs14C5hgSY5UZqquOjEykwJp6zVhsO_XNhf0353aHiakiADr-9G6d-4rf64teh3IH-mvzEY-RzKRifGacc-PgQYPr/s1684/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-08%20at%209.13.57%20PM%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="878" data-original-width="1684" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLsr2xPZRlVR6CW-WjB5o7xr8m1JZ_4Qi3N_dKEXny3hVuGVoN5ro0ZvG3aa53lMeSbFDVBDh4vvcH1ZO5zZe8m3cfkcYzOeBg8QXDs14C5hgSY5UZqquOjEykwJp6zVhsO_XNhf0353aHiakiADr-9G6d-4rf64teh3IH-mvzEY-RzKRifGacc-PgQYPr/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-08%20at%209.13.57%20PM%202.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: BLACK TUESDAY Year: 1954 Rating: ***1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>By the 1950's, twenty years after pioneering the crime/gangster genre, Edward G. Robinson was a kind of elder statesman of the subject... although sometimes he'd play good guys, even cops...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>But in BLACK TUESDAY he was back in the previous decade's KEY LARGO mode... an antagonist so vile, everyone surrounding him, here in the initial death row prison setting, is good by comparison: making this crime film very noir...</p><p><span></span></p>

edward g. robinson, fifties, film noir or melodrama, jailbreak, jean parker, kidnapping, milburn stone, peter graves, russell johnson, warren stevens

EDWARD G. ROBINSON IN 'BLACK TUESDAY' WITH PETER GRAVES

Title: BLACK TUESDAY Year: 1954 Rating: ***1/2 By the 1950's, twenty years after pioneering the crime/gangster genre, Edward G. Robinson...

EDWARD G. ROBINSON BUSTS ADAM WILLIAMS IN 'VICE SQUAD'

<p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiHNODP1TJ_WlYZlblH3SHNEM5W0MxyvyNOVYWxZH4zwR8OdxsahnkFYVOY3hvFA8eh36tooxBH3mHYjU8KVs_-09ynEEcLhjCeQk1AJ54vMd9dacGqSHw0impViM45PC03DlSSv_r2lfPxwiQtP8E8-WTt94GzPs3mRDpqb-VE6aA-Ym57Zl7_KzswSCW/s2054/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-10%20at%2012.51.43%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1036" data-original-width="2054" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiHNODP1TJ_WlYZlblH3SHNEM5W0MxyvyNOVYWxZH4zwR8OdxsahnkFYVOY3hvFA8eh36tooxBH3mHYjU8KVs_-09ynEEcLhjCeQk1AJ54vMd9dacGqSHw0impViM45PC03DlSSv_r2lfPxwiQtP8E8-WTt94GzPs3mRDpqb-VE6aA-Ym57Zl7_KzswSCW/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-10%20at%2012.51.43%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Adam Williams and Edward G. Robinson in VICE SQUAD Year: 1953 Rating: ***1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>A year before Edward G. Robinson starred in a film noir basically playing his KEY LARGO character but as a prison escaping, kidnapping psychopath in BLACK TUESDAY, he was on the other side of the law... <br><br>As he'd done several times including DOUBLE INDEMNITY, and here as a police chief in VICE SQUAD that, despite the title, has little to do with busting prostitutes, mostly since the 1950's didn't have that kind of freedom... <br></p><p></p><p></p><p><span></span></p>

adam williams, barry kelley, cop, dan riss, edward binns, fifties, film noir or melodrama, jay adler, lee van cleef, mary ellen kay, paulette goddard, thriller

EDWARD G. ROBINSON BUSTS ADAM WILLIAMS IN 'VICE SQUAD'

Adam Williams and Edward G. Robinson in VICE SQUAD Year: 1953 Rating: ***1/2 A year before Edward G. Robinson starred in a film noir basical...

VAL GUEST DIRECTS STANLEY BAKER IN HAMMER'S 'HELL IS A CITY'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo6un97B2w4zbuKKV9EtsUOnNFVDWO4GEVEz6CVnuoBcYWHxm9vpznvlhlamV3t-novtp5jK4sfM8jSofMERmVEd8DqvxeOwXmK6GGXCpc5ScIPbIJoDQtoltM7StUZEgVpfJaN7AdWPjzCWPVEeAmVijIDCQI4J2ccj82yiuKzsNMNdr2fAM2uxcHApSS/s1926/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-09%20at%2012.20.26%20AM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="944" data-original-width="1926" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo6un97B2w4zbuKKV9EtsUOnNFVDWO4GEVEz6CVnuoBcYWHxm9vpznvlhlamV3t-novtp5jK4sfM8jSofMERmVEd8DqvxeOwXmK6GGXCpc5ScIPbIJoDQtoltM7StUZEgVpfJaN7AdWPjzCWPVEeAmVijIDCQI4J2ccj82yiuKzsNMNdr2fAM2uxcHApSS/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-09%20at%2012.20.26%20AM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Stanley Baker in HELL IS A CITY Year: 1960 Rates: ***</u><u>*</u><u>*</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The second and final Hammer feature with Val Guest directing his <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2021/03/YE.html">YESTERDAY'S ENEMY</a> leading man Stanley Baker, HELL IS A CITY is not only a Noir-like Police Procedural but an Escaped Convict Procedural as sinister John Crawford hops from various former colleagues and lovers while intense cop Baker, who'd originally put him away and is revenge-driven to nab him back, visits/questions the same people...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>From a bookie's cheating wife (Billie Whitelaw ignoring rich husband Donald Pleasence who employed doomed Lois Daine); a flirty waitress; a stubborn salesman with a gorgeous deaf/dumb daughter (Sarah Branch); and featuring various locales run by a shady gang with deliciously pulpy nicknames like Clogger Roach...</p><p><span></span></p>

billie whitelaw, british neo noir, donald pleasence, geoffrey frederick, george a. cooper, hammer films, jazz score, john crawford, lois daine, sarah branch, sixties, stanley baker, val guest, vanda godsell

VAL GUEST DIRECTS STANLEY BAKER IN HAMMER'S 'HELL IS A CITY'

Stanley Baker in HELL IS A CITY Year: 1960 Rates: *** * * The second and final Hammer feature with Val Guest directing his YESTERDAY'S E...

TV MINISERIES 'HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY' WITH STANLEY BAKER

<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2qla7LnDbRggENB7Os3YDgAqeOJe0arH7hpEOghBtMo_zlsWIufvESUIsT9RBXWfQ5cgpRZ0xAzAiaXVi5B4nk6KX7XeqjV4wfYSaGiECwmLaRcbqNDx1v9hTB543tvK7wmAm07w4cafsLRRu4xCcMUPcexrn-mE3JLngtDMhhlqvZyt9Yet8BZvkUKMK/s1878/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-09%20at%2012.35.55%20AM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="1878" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2qla7LnDbRggENB7Os3YDgAqeOJe0arH7hpEOghBtMo_zlsWIufvESUIsT9RBXWfQ5cgpRZ0xAzAiaXVi5B4nk6KX7XeqjV4wfYSaGiECwmLaRcbqNDx1v9hTB543tvK7wmAm07w4cafsLRRu4xCcMUPcexrn-mE3JLngtDMhhlqvZyt9Yet8BZvkUKMK/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-09%20at%2012.35.55%20AM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Stanley Baker in HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY Year: 1975 Rating: ****</u><br></td></tr></tbody></table><p>In 1975, the BBC brought HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY... John Ford's 1941 Oscar winning film that somehow beat CITIZEN KANE for best  picture and (more insanely) best director... back home... </p><p></p><p>Here using the novelty of casting only Welsh actors in a miniseries about the hard-working 19th century Welsh people... primarily centering on an initially crippled son with his mine-working father, two brothers, two sisters and a strong mother involved in endless bad luck situations, taking up a total of six hours from six hour-long episodes... </p><span></span>

british tv, gareth edwards, john clive, mike gwilym, miniseries, ray smith, remake, seventies, siân phillips, stanley baker, sue jones-davies, union, victoria plucknett

TV MINISERIES 'HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY' WITH STANLEY BAKER

Stanley Baker in HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY Year: 1975 Rating: **** In 1975, the BBC brought HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY... John Ford's 1941 Os...

WILLIAM LUCAS, ZENA WALKER & DAVID GREGORY 'THE MARKED ONE'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/search/label/william%20lucas"></a></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqWlqhNBW53SMywUPaBGKvTAAm0GE3XnFuRr6zJRwAEYeVj_a4oFBaQIyMugN5mN7vmUppaAJq8u4E0Nf0LalB_uk8lue3B91c6PhFC8qK332_8ANut387eW_2PsGXrHNvIrSK3G7wQCsqrqNve-9Z63T2VvHfKdtZAIO7TWk9tu8JA3cZLe7WBJIjmWc3/s1774/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-08%20at%2012.13.09%20AM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="844" data-original-width="1774" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqWlqhNBW53SMywUPaBGKvTAAm0GE3XnFuRr6zJRwAEYeVj_a4oFBaQIyMugN5mN7vmUppaAJq8u4E0Nf0LalB_uk8lue3B91c6PhFC8qK332_8ANut387eW_2PsGXrHNvIrSK3G7wQCsqrqNve-9Z63T2VvHfKdtZAIO7TWk9tu8JA3cZLe7WBJIjmWc3/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-08%20at%2012.13.09%20AM.png"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: THE MARKED ONE Year: 1963 Rating: ***1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Obscure British actor <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/search/label/william%20lucas">William Lucas</a> gained niche fame as the father from the 1970's BLACK BEAUTY, no longer the Bogart-looking tough guy from a string of early-1960's b-crimes as leading bad guys (<a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2021/02/gimme-a.html">THE BREAK</a>), sketchy middlemen (<a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2021/03/payrollers.html">PAYROLL</a>) or criminals in-between (CALCULATED RISK, <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2021/03/breakOUT.html">BREAKOUT</a>)...<br><br>And THE MARKED ONE also leans to that midpoint... an ex convict who, with a divorced wife, young daughter, dotting landlady (Laurie Leigh) and a factory job, is threatened by enigmatic goons to retrieve forgery plates that he might or might not have, providing more mystery to the character than his dire circumstance...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><span></span></p>

british neo noir, british new wave, crime, david gregory, kidnapping, kim tracy, sixties, thriller, william lucas, wrong man, zena walker

WILLIAM LUCAS, ZENA WALKER & DAVID GREGORY 'THE MARKED ONE'

Title: THE MARKED ONE Year: 1963 Rating: ***1/2 Obscure British actor William Lucas gained niche fame as the father from the 1970's BLA...

JACQUELINE ELLIS HITCHES JIM O'CONNOLLY'S 'THE HI-JACKERS'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkUyJxDz-nWmKEVmKAVXwwmmHpsLuga0zc9o-FvOu8eQVQG2ZIKK7nmgTW7tWAhOEEZ1Hn4sJvxCx2fT-eIeRAkzqNaP29-DPY70br56HK1YmI1Gw23rl_v0CSkNebPdMaAK4-UtQC3kXfEZSju6opD7tlhHbLMqcOISYH4NewX_cMZs3-KRJBMbUw2hUz/s1406/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-08%20at%2012.52.05%20AM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="826" data-original-width="1406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkUyJxDz-nWmKEVmKAVXwwmmHpsLuga0zc9o-FvOu8eQVQG2ZIKK7nmgTW7tWAhOEEZ1Hn4sJvxCx2fT-eIeRAkzqNaP29-DPY70br56HK1YmI1Gw23rl_v0CSkNebPdMaAK4-UtQC3kXfEZSju6opD7tlhHbLMqcOISYH4NewX_cMZs3-KRJBMbUw2hUz/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-08%20at%2012.52.05%20AM.png"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u> Title: THE HI-JACKERSYear: 1963 Rating: ****</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Writer/director Jim O'Connolly should be well known for two films where the cult status went to someone else: In BERSERK, Joan Crawford gets credit while stop-motion guru Ray Harryhausen and his dinosaurs ruled THE VALLEY OF GWANGI. But O'Connolly's by himself in creating two neat, tight and entertaining B&W post-noir crime flicks derived from the British b-picture company, Butcher's, in the early/mid 1960's...<br> <br> The first being THE HI-JACKERS starring Anthony Booth as an independent truck/lorry driver: victim of the titular gang faking accident scenes on the rural roadside and then stealing the cargo: in his case, cases of Johnnie Walker Red...<br> </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>

anthony booth, british, british neo noir, british new wave, crime, david gregory, derek francis, glynn edwards, jacqueline ellis, jazz-score, jim o'connolly, sixties

JACQUELINE ELLIS HITCHES JIM O'CONNOLLY'S 'THE HI-JACKERS'

Title: THE HI-JACKERSYear: 1963 Rating: **** Writer/director Jim O'Connolly should be well known for two films where the cult status we...

SUSAN SHAW AND PAUL CARPENTER IN WOLF RILLA'S 'STOCK CAR'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCtNpEn-xrgFryPzDPod99L7bDZK0s1_T3XqHGflVUjBT-jNcLJEx2CQICyyN7PiL45Lp5stmuy46o4O-gPMUl4swtUH4uHbbeSbMCwziCEUWZ1pkRwz_EmITxLF0rusmoBDNw7a31srEL-_1m4_Z1P5P9JXG_sk5AXBtoBDmSH0wQl7iTI5RF-zBMu-LF/s1452/1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="828" data-original-width="1452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCtNpEn-xrgFryPzDPod99L7bDZK0s1_T3XqHGflVUjBT-jNcLJEx2CQICyyN7PiL45Lp5stmuy46o4O-gPMUl4swtUH4uHbbeSbMCwziCEUWZ1pkRwz_EmITxLF0rusmoBDNw7a31srEL-_1m4_Z1P5P9JXG_sk5AXBtoBDmSH0wQl7iTI5RF-zBMu-LF/s16000/1.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: STOCK CAR Year: 1955 Rating: ****</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Canadian actor turned British movie <i>stock American</i> <i>character</i> Paul Carpenter had one of the smoothest voices in the history of cinema, so much that he'd either play random announcers or sometimes co-leads, like in director Wolf Rilla's STOCK CAR...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>By looks he didn't really stand out, yet with a cool enough demeanor suiting the vocal delivery, it's easier to believe that two polar opposite dames (bad blonde and virginal brunette) would be instantly smitten...  <br></p><span></span>

british film noir, fifties, harry fowler, patrick jordan, paul carpenter, race car, robert rietty, rona anderson, sabrina, susan shaw, wolf rilla

SUSAN SHAW AND PAUL CARPENTER IN WOLF RILLA'S 'STOCK CAR'

Title: STOCK CAR Year: 1955 Rating: **** Canadian actor turned British movie stock American character Paul Carpenter had one of the smooth...

SUSAN SHAW & DONALD HOUSTON IN WOLF RILLA'S 'THE LARGE ROPE'

<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeGka0QbVYPZILYNZtnZ5zyUrMvMQiJUX6hRtZYD_5KmnvpnGtbj6WrO24sD0M9KuMlXpYX6BaFPVyEZ7PmAMIjhdbWmqfxtfsP6_vmvCIMSFQqYX3ikLjBUWv0hTS0SNShudzg7KTflM6kBU_-ougua4fRPSH6lByuig5aUmr7VHS7WtMhxKTUbOtProb/s1380/1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="776" data-original-width="1380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeGka0QbVYPZILYNZtnZ5zyUrMvMQiJUX6hRtZYD_5KmnvpnGtbj6WrO24sD0M9KuMlXpYX6BaFPVyEZ7PmAMIjhdbWmqfxtfsP6_vmvCIMSFQqYX3ikLjBUWv0hTS0SNShudzg7KTflM6kBU_-ougua4fRPSH6lByuig5aUmr7VHS7WtMhxKTUbOtProb/s16000/1.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Donald Houston and Peter Byrne in THE LARGE ROPE Year: 1953 Rating: ***1/2</u><br></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Before becoming known as THE LONG ROPE, director Wolf Rilla's THE LARGE ROPE meant that Donald Houston's central character, a young man released from jail and returning to his small hometown village, is basically caught right in the <i>thick</i> of it...</p><p></p><p>Not only does no one want him around, especially ex-girlfriend Susan Shaw and his former best friend she's marrying, but he winds up accused of murdering a flirtatious older woman played by an actress who made a living brilliantly playing them... </p><span></span>

british film noir, christine finn, donald houston, edward judd, fifties, mystery, robert brown, susan shaw, vanda godsell, wolf rilla, wrong man

SUSAN SHAW & DONALD HOUSTON IN WOLF RILLA'S 'THE LARGE ROPE'

Donald Houston and Peter Byrne in THE LARGE ROPE Year: 1953 Rating: ***1/2 Before becoming known as THE LONG ROPE, director Wolf Rilla's...

JIM O'CONNOLLY'S 'SMOKESCREEN' STARRING PETER VAUGHAN

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-YyzsB9bM8IIv4i8aKzbupV_ntCyu3kJvVqk_9FuYjAt_PnYyUj3YhjacbiW0WpZm2ROMnx0TPaM4qXoJud0sWHywFJpeulzKPIRTX7xigcedORS91ax0JKZkAq21Ha1t7Auh-rQ_qL1PTt0qBenPU6tGNAb7gXwd_pSa8pVTZXnSta0C-zlPjs36XylJ/s1578/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-08%20at%2012.59.27%20AM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="802" data-original-width="1578" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-YyzsB9bM8IIv4i8aKzbupV_ntCyu3kJvVqk_9FuYjAt_PnYyUj3YhjacbiW0WpZm2ROMnx0TPaM4qXoJud0sWHywFJpeulzKPIRTX7xigcedORS91ax0JKZkAq21Ha1t7Auh-rQ_qL1PTt0qBenPU6tGNAb7gXwd_pSa8pVTZXnSta0C-zlPjs36XylJ/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-08%20at%2012.59.27%20AM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>David Gregory & Jill Curzon in SMOKESCREEN Year: 1964 Rates: ****</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The biggest shame about Jim O'Connolly's quirky low-budget British post-noir SMOKESCREEN is that it was a film instead of a television series since Peter Vaughan's perpetually cautious and stingy insurance adjuster Roper had so many more adventures in him....<br> <br> His particular case involves what the audience and a young couple witness from the very beginning: a burning car driving off a cliff, and we never see a driver, which is what Roper searches for throughout the hour-long programmer, going from one person to the next in the usual "gumshoey" investigative fashion... <br> </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>

british neo noir, british new wave, david gregory, derek francis, glynn edwards, jill curzon, jim o'connolly, john carson, penny morrell, peter vaughan, sixties, yvonne romain

JIM O'CONNOLLY'S 'SMOKESCREEN' STARRING PETER VAUGHAN

David Gregory & Jill Curzon in SMOKESCREEN Year: 1964 Rates: **** The biggest shame about Jim O'Connolly's quirky low-budget Bri...

STANLEY BAKER IN CY ENDFIELD'S AIRLINE DISASTER 'JET STORM'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6PsOtZW51zPCP_5z-l-EmTH93d0Xi_r6tT2f6rMDafTPIXkIIwVoslFW2OsEJ812wF_8_7sy27fyzLVrYcTJoEY6dy8nIKPQaYiIJGmyXb1ldE1XaLg9Vf5l8IGAK64c192d-aUGeG72TvjyFK5mNs5gDRCt6LpEdTAO17be-W3dUHZSHR-mBgt5TdHVv/s1702/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-01%20at%201.12.07%20AM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1018" data-original-width="1702" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6PsOtZW51zPCP_5z-l-EmTH93d0Xi_r6tT2f6rMDafTPIXkIIwVoslFW2OsEJ812wF_8_7sy27fyzLVrYcTJoEY6dy8nIKPQaYiIJGmyXb1ldE1XaLg9Vf5l8IGAK64c192d-aUGeG72TvjyFK5mNs5gDRCt6LpEdTAO17be-W3dUHZSHR-mBgt5TdHVv/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-06-01%20at%201.12.07%20AM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Stanley Baker in JET STORM Year: 1959 Rating: ***1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The Pink Floyd lyric "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way" could have summed up the entire undercurrent of the British airline-disaster JET STORM, the second collaboration of Blacklisted American director Cy Endfield and Welsh actor Stanley Baker... who became a bonafide movie star the previous year in their action/noir HELL DRIVERS...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><span class="Rxerq">Yet here, Baker is second-billed in what's mostly an equal ensemble of passengers that he's the stalwart pilot of, trying to talk down psychotically hardboiled (first-billed) Richard Attenborough, who planted a bomb somewhere that could go off, sometime, because someone on board had killed his daughter in a hit-and-run accident years earlier... <br></span></p><p><span class="Rxerq"><span></span></span></p>

airplane, british, cy endfield, diane cilento, disaster, elizabeth sellars, fifties, jocelyn lane, mai zetterling, patrick allen, paul carpenter, richard attenborough, stanley baker, thriller, virginia maskell

STANLEY BAKER IN CY ENDFIELD'S AIRLINE DISASTER 'JET STORM'

Stanley Baker in JET STORM Year: 1959 Rating: ***1/2 The Pink Floyd lyric "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way" cou...

BURT LANCASTER DRIVING JOHN FRANKENHEIMER'S 'THE TRAIN'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPbH1Z6cDBBVLOb44j4AKKPlqBHVr4wTG3ZNafCwQXuLbQHCJP_RIUNSxBxSxqndByYnK8BMVCXhw5AgkT-46xhgY3CGLGYZG1Nd-vB0S-AUF-tdECnF98NUYuSDjJIxoVoBadf7S_cXW8SkXnL7_L7jRO1eGetAeVUcopkNzJYY2mHY7O8eeIZrPkRLG0/s1204/Screen%20Shot%202025-05-27%20at%207.28.23%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="664" data-original-width="1204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPbH1Z6cDBBVLOb44j4AKKPlqBHVr4wTG3ZNafCwQXuLbQHCJP_RIUNSxBxSxqndByYnK8BMVCXhw5AgkT-46xhgY3CGLGYZG1Nd-vB0S-AUF-tdECnF98NUYuSDjJIxoVoBadf7S_cXW8SkXnL7_L7jRO1eGetAeVUcopkNzJYY2mHY7O8eeIZrPkRLG0/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-05-27%20at%207.28.23%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: THE TRAIN Year: 1964 Rating: ***1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Not since Jean Renior's French classic LA BÊTE HUMAINE has the rugged, grimy, grungy and grainy B&W workings of freight trains been so up-close and palpable... this an American-made war film about the French, where Burt Lancaster teams with director John Frankenheimer, an auteur inserting documentary-style camerawork into mainstream action...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That's not only about particular action-packed scenes but pretty much every movement: Lancaster (doing his own stunts) and fellow train-workers saving famous classic paintings from the Nazis at the tail-end of World War II...  <br></p><p><span></span></p>

action, burt lancaster, heist, jeanne moreau, john frankenheimer, paul scofield, sixties, train, wolfgang preiss, world war II

BURT LANCASTER DRIVING JOHN FRANKENHEIMER'S 'THE TRAIN'

Title: THE TRAIN Year: 1964 Rating: ***1/2 Not since Jean Renior's French classic LA BÊTE HUMAINE has the rugged, grimy, grungy and grai...

ENA HARTMAN, TOM SELLECK & MARTA KRISTEN 'TERMINAL ISLAND'

<p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBjl-9g4qzPfCEd_zyMpTbFeKihvuAdm0pLqSGNjmhIHU-BXOhSDwYczPxwr1nyhMKVRBfsObOPuMPvz0LVDvUbjvrJvPW5mGbSjXAmUDyPzEWJlCN_iNEli9byryTrxdA1KxHn51LYjqEp15YZUeD0xqG-EusRCqBE1kuuA9IaXulFhOZmMfBJtunVpp9/s1756/1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1020" data-original-width="1756" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBjl-9g4qzPfCEd_zyMpTbFeKihvuAdm0pLqSGNjmhIHU-BXOhSDwYczPxwr1nyhMKVRBfsObOPuMPvz0LVDvUbjvrJvPW5mGbSjXAmUDyPzEWJlCN_iNEli9byryTrxdA1KxHn51LYjqEp15YZUeD0xqG-EusRCqBE1kuuA9IaXulFhOZmMfBJtunVpp9/s16000/1.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Marta Kristen, Don Marshall & Ena Hartman in TERMINAL ISLAND Year: 1973 Rating: **1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>For an exploitation flick that seems to make itself up as it goes, TERMINAL ISLAND begins creatively enough, much like the same years' WESTWORLD with random interviews about the title location... </p><p></p><p></p><p>In this case, based on the actual California death penalty being overturned (making The Manson Family eligible for parole soon after), random people are asked what they think of the prison island alternative, like ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK after while based on the infamous Devil's Island, where murderous convicts are left to their own devices...</p><p><span></span></p>

action, blaxploitation, don marshall, ena hartman, exploitation, marta kristen, phyllis davis, prison, roger e. mosley, science-fiction, tom selleck

ENA HARTMAN, TOM SELLECK & MARTA KRISTEN 'TERMINAL ISLAND'

Marta Kristen, Don Marshall & Ena Hartman in TERMINAL ISLAND Year: 1973 Rating: **1/2 For an exploitation flick that seems to make itsel...

ROBERT WISE NOIRISH THRILLER 'THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL'

<p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtntduhvcxyWweSVEc6AKwhuVItLI00urfG5fjkvLvavothk-U3PypJBLBXDQD7UJfSHgxIcGkEC9pKb609k716iOZNDQNitbeLQpggWB0kosgk5oaj8fetcKK2oFGKiEub1ydyiUi-a3hiLbaGCwTxydbNgIN9-80XDNGjRPPxRBr5exA72AFnf8LsStt/s1406/1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="986" data-original-width="1406" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtntduhvcxyWweSVEc6AKwhuVItLI00urfG5fjkvLvavothk-U3PypJBLBXDQD7UJfSHgxIcGkEC9pKb609k716iOZNDQNitbeLQpggWB0kosgk5oaj8fetcKK2oFGKiEub1ydyiUi-a3hiLbaGCwTxydbNgIN9-80XDNGjRPPxRBr5exA72AFnf8LsStt/s16000/1.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL Year: 1951 Rating: ***1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>If anyone but subtle Italian actress Valentina Cortese had starred in Robert Wise's THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL, it would be the kind of haunted, wispy melodrama that the wispily melodramatic, haunting posters imply...<br><br>Ironically, on some artwork, American actress Fay Baker is more prominent, holding onto searing villain Richard Basehart, the great American actor who often sounds like a sophisticated British villain...  </p><span></span>

fay baker, fifties, film noir or melodrama, richard basehart, robert wise, thriller, valentina cortese, william lundigan

ROBERT WISE NOIRISH THRILLER 'THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL'

Title: THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL Year: 1951 Rating: ***1/2 If anyone but subtle Italian actress Valentina Cortese had starred in Robert Wi...

ANOTHER LATE-1950'S CRIME/NOIR EXPOSÉ 'THE TIJUANA STORY'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4XCNY2P9Yx84Sc_SrebKjxPGq3EVemVEJEINr2fK2rB-Ap1Ktzsi-Ia6qyc1iRGKqFX_hWRvQqs5uoTLg0iLv_A1xSq5GzvCKeBBloyc-z1g8XMg392tBb9hlh6FJEz10ozLa-JiBxp6cww0jejuxl_yatYGr0yrTk1-u9lw2IXwR_vIpGVfU6pbT4rji/s1144/Screen%20Shot%202025-05-08%20at%206.56.05%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="1144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4XCNY2P9Yx84Sc_SrebKjxPGq3EVemVEJEINr2fK2rB-Ap1Ktzsi-Ia6qyc1iRGKqFX_hWRvQqs5uoTLg0iLv_A1xSq5GzvCKeBBloyc-z1g8XMg392tBb9hlh6FJEz10ozLa-JiBxp6cww0jejuxl_yatYGr0yrTk1-u9lw2IXwR_vIpGVfU6pbT4rji/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-05-08%20at%206.56.05%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: THE TIJUANA STORY Year: 1957 Rating: **</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>One of those 1950's noir/exposès that includes an actual government official's opening narration, staring into the camera and telling us that this really happened... which is hard to believe since most of the Mexican characters in the titular THE TIJUANA STORY are not only white, but not even attempting to look authentic... </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yet the most intriguing are supposed to be white, Robert McQueeney and Jean Willes, as married, crooked go-betweens for a Mexican crime-boss that's keeping the marijuana-ridden bordertown at bay...</p><span></span>

expose, fifties, film noir or melodrama, jean wiles, joy stoner, michael fox, robert blake, robert mcqueeney, rodolfo acosta

ANOTHER LATE-1950'S CRIME/NOIR EXPOSÉ 'THE TIJUANA STORY'

Title: THE TIJUANA STORY Year: 1957 Rating: ** One of those 1950's noir/exposès that includes an actual government official's openin...

RICHARD CONTE DRIVES HAMMER'S RACE VEHICLE 'MASK OF DUST'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmko6Wix_HzMS8Atgk6U2frqkZ6RbG87g8rc-1kvaijBMlGSgkY2YIYPfnvGB9EWXGfSPi6x57U1elC4gprihy5TQNIXX2yPeNuVEJ2pNbvpXLXX8N532A5zUYToCrKWVPHvpUrQ_vCtv4DBUBb94YOsyj7eNghldsXAMM4UqRNQE5R69WXA3SkXxKgxRl/s2312/Screen%20Shot%202025-05-16%20at%204.55.03%20PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1476" data-original-width="2312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmko6Wix_HzMS8Atgk6U2frqkZ6RbG87g8rc-1kvaijBMlGSgkY2YIYPfnvGB9EWXGfSPi6x57U1elC4gprihy5TQNIXX2yPeNuVEJ2pNbvpXLXX8N532A5zUYToCrKWVPHvpUrQ_vCtv4DBUBb94YOsyj7eNghldsXAMM4UqRNQE5R69WXA3SkXxKgxRl/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-05-16%20at%204.55.03%20PM.png"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: MASK OF DUST Year: 1954 Rating: **</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>One of the greatest titles for a race car movie, Terence Fisher's pre-horror Hammer MASK OF DUST settled stateside for the blandly retooled RACE FOR LIFE, and yet, neither really fit the actual movie...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Starring American crime-genre actor Richard Conte, perhaps <i>Interior Conversations of Exterior Driving</i> would fare better to what's a stagey melodrama with real and/or rear-projected racing shots where Grand Prix drivers fight to survive...</p><p><span></span></p>

british, fifties, george coulouris, hammer films, james copeland, mari aldon, melodrama, race car, terence fisher

RICHARD CONTE DRIVES HAMMER'S RACE VEHICLE 'MASK OF DUST'

Title: MASK OF DUST Year: 1954 Rating: ** One of the greatest titles for a race car movie, Terence Fisher's pre-horror Hammer MASK OF DU...

TED KOTCHEFF DIRECTS SYLVESTER STALLONE IN 'FIRST BLOOD'

<p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4k6I5Ri_zC2G-ajOoG-XqdfqzYhdZ1P4sEjPPLoyUKINd2AqyXfMCbrfq_fWqPgTyPGkdHrYmaA9XgRTT0UjEWAovNGB0m5annKbvQpG-3uQqGi5KgEjCNq7mQ3sZjzXki-xrWecVizRrD4KHZr0eMovosl1GhtNzsmAZNq78Rsln5s5YuwT9WkYhW17L/s1940/Screen%20Shot%202025-04-16%20at%2010.35.41%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1110" data-original-width="1940" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4k6I5Ri_zC2G-ajOoG-XqdfqzYhdZ1P4sEjPPLoyUKINd2AqyXfMCbrfq_fWqPgTyPGkdHrYmaA9XgRTT0UjEWAovNGB0m5annKbvQpG-3uQqGi5KgEjCNq7mQ3sZjzXki-xrWecVizRrD4KHZr0eMovosl1GhtNzsmAZNq78Rsln5s5YuwT9WkYhW17L/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-04-16%20at%2010.35.41%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: FIRST BLOOD Year: 1982 Rating: ****1/2</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>When rural sheriff Brian Dennehy drives ragged drifter Sylvester Stallone from one side of a one-mile town to the next, he mentions several times how <i>that long hair</i> wouldn't fit into such a peaceful community...</p><p></p><p></p><p>Yet it wouldn't take until the third film where Stallone's former green-beret/Vietnam-vet character would have the hair-length to matter... which is kind of a symbolic microcosm of how FIRST BLOOD differs from the now-legendary franchise, centering on an actual human being named John instead of an all-powerful warrior named RAMBO... <br></p><p><span></span></p>

action, adventure, bill mckinney, brian dennehy, chris mulkey, david caruso, eighties, franchise, jack starrett, michael talbott, richard crenna, sylvester stallone, vietnam

TED KOTCHEFF DIRECTS SYLVESTER STALLONE IN 'FIRST BLOOD'

Title: FIRST BLOOD Year: 1982 Rating: ****1/2 When rural sheriff Brian Dennehy drives ragged drifter Sylvester Stallone from one side of a o...

GENE HACKMAN COMMANDS TED KOTCHEFF'S 'UNCOMMON VALOR'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_iuyoT90Q0AFhlHAsFRV03yfRoakpJGgXee9oH3nt53BXcMAtNYYIuRlLR38ZH5JcwBj6BiwRadR17Ag-1hiV8_QYupzbggupDPF5FE7gvB15iQdFgELNbGBU_S394ljp6Pvcpzfp_oUJPLdzTPXLfQ9nfkm9i4l78mjyhARKOPH1ktZKilNXfyd2kJpd/s2046/Screen%20Shot%202025-04-17%20at%206.07.38%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1026" data-original-width="2046" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_iuyoT90Q0AFhlHAsFRV03yfRoakpJGgXee9oH3nt53BXcMAtNYYIuRlLR38ZH5JcwBj6BiwRadR17Ag-1hiV8_QYupzbggupDPF5FE7gvB15iQdFgELNbGBU_S394ljp6Pvcpzfp_oUJPLdzTPXLfQ9nfkm9i4l78mjyhARKOPH1ktZKilNXfyd2kJpd/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-04-17%20at%206.07.38%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Randall Tex Cobb & Kelly Junkerman in UNCOMMON VALOR Year: 1983 Rating: ****</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Recently, three important people connected to 1983's UNCOMMON VALOR have died: the most significant being the legendary Gene Hackman, who stars as Colonel Jason Rhodes, gathering a group of Vietnam veterans who served with his captured son — training them to bring his boy back home a decade later... <br></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Then there's director Ted Kotcheff, who had already tackled a similar subject in FIRST BLOOD (also featuring a kind of lonesome French horn soundtrack albeit by different composers); and actor Wings Hauser, who hasn't a part here, and isn't credited as writer, but his original screenplay (formerly titled <i>Youth in Asia</i>) became what's now a somewhat forgotten, equally cult-and-mainstream post-war action/thriller... <br></p><p><span></span></p>

action, adventure, constance forslund, eighties, fred ward, gene hackman, harold sylvester, patrick swayze, reb brown, robert stack, ted kotcheff, tim thomerson, vietnam, war, wings hauser

GENE HACKMAN COMMANDS TED KOTCHEFF'S 'UNCOMMON VALOR'

Randall Tex Cobb & Kelly Junkerman in UNCOMMON VALOR Year: 1983 Rating: **** Recently, three important people connected to 1983's UN...

PAUL MUNI IN HOWARD HAWKS ORIGINAL MOB-EXPOSE 'SCARFACE'

<p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-AlF1UyZaNRyjZyxBIp2VGgdaCneEBycw9MXeYteOmrTxJxuF7hcN23-XgBqlH6HNam-4GM26FNPCOxuJFjU5sybsw53fTBOf2um2_3wBGYN_zha2qK5ximxRjJTtUNTTjAMXXRDWlzdBlcGYHzXk9QdxrIvW1FeJ4t6qMumQ9lNv5vrrGMZMFQ4T6B0L/s2320/1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1320" data-original-width="2320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-AlF1UyZaNRyjZyxBIp2VGgdaCneEBycw9MXeYteOmrTxJxuF7hcN23-XgBqlH6HNam-4GM26FNPCOxuJFjU5sybsw53fTBOf2um2_3wBGYN_zha2qK5ximxRjJTtUNTTjAMXXRDWlzdBlcGYHzXk9QdxrIvW1FeJ4t6qMumQ9lNv5vrrGMZMFQ4T6B0L/s16000/1.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Title: SCARFACE Year: 1932 Rating: ***</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Howard Hawks' SCARFACE is like a <i>Cliff's Notes</i> for a book that's yet to be written... and that's not only relating to the many-decades-later remake starring Al Pacino, but something like, say, <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2023/10/R20s.html">THE ROARING TWENTIES</a> where James Cagney (who had ironically starred in the previous years' inspiration <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2023/09/cagney-begins.html">THE PUBLIC ENEMY</a>) takes over a prohibition-syndicate to runs things his way, and that features a comic-relief crony... <br></p><p></p><p></p><p>There it's Frank McHugh, here there's a bumbling, completely out-of-place Vince Barnett while <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2023/10/R20s.html">ROARING</a> tough-second Humphrey Bogart's role is played by his <a href="http://www.cultfilmfreaks.com/2016/07/DriveBelowTheHiddenRoadblock.html">THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT</a> brother, providing George Raft a resilient, slow-burn gunman that should have had far more importance and screen-time...</p><p><span></span></p>

action, ann dvorak, boris karloff, exploitation, george raft, howard hawks, karen morley, mobster, osgood perkins, paul muni, thirties, vince barnett

PAUL MUNI IN HOWARD HAWKS ORIGINAL MOB-EXPOSE 'SCARFACE'

Title: SCARFACE Year: 1932 Rating: *** Howard Hawks' SCARFACE is like a Cliff's Notes for a book that's yet to be written... an...

ROBERT DOWNEY JR WITH VAL KILMER IN 'KISS KISS BANG BANG'

<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTj5QgmC1f71xgyKkF0lcZiIl1qKi7hBW0KNvl06PgXD04-mamsq10Y2JMAxEkIlLb03I86x2sTX8rRudWdE3dK3izMCVcxAKxGR-92jvJ5VQ-io-r7G6iTdXlkjE6aEBHIHvBJmtQ9FcB9bJLG_ioQmt87uiG_u7OS2vMqdc5lHctsHNS0u3tfGwocmjX/s2394/Screen%20Shot%202025-04-04%20at%2011.12.14%20PM.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="2394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTj5QgmC1f71xgyKkF0lcZiIl1qKi7hBW0KNvl06PgXD04-mamsq10Y2JMAxEkIlLb03I86x2sTX8rRudWdE3dK3izMCVcxAKxGR-92jvJ5VQ-io-r7G6iTdXlkjE6aEBHIHvBJmtQ9FcB9bJLG_ioQmt87uiG_u7OS2vMqdc5lHctsHNS0u3tfGwocmjX/s16000/Screen%20Shot%202025-04-04%20at%2011.12.14%20PM.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u>Michelle Monaghan in KISS KISS BANG BANG Year: 2005 Rating: ****</u></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Famous for writing the original LETHAL WEAPON, thus receiving story credit for the entire hit-and-miss franchise, Shane Black energetically attempts to trade mainstream action for a Quentin Tarantino style wheelhouse of humorously neurotic criminals who still do violent, desperate, horrible things... </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>And instead of outright ripping off the PULP FICTION auteur, Black goes back even further, basing the adapted KISS KISS BANG BANG on his love of Pulp Fiction itself: detective novels that inspired everything in the 1940's/1950's Noir lexicon, making this a mile-a-minute Neo Noir that runs itself ragged before the first fifteen minutes...</p><p><span></span></p>

ariel winter, buddy, comedy, crime, dark comedy, genre tarantino, gumshoe, michelle monaghan, neo noir, robert downey jr., shane black, shannyn sossamon, stephanie pearson, val kilmer, zeroes

ROBERT DOWNEY JR WITH VAL KILMER IN 'KISS KISS BANG BANG'

Michelle Monaghan in KISS KISS BANG BANG Year: 2005 Rating: **** Famous for writing the original LETHAL WEAPON, thus receiving story credit ...