Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)

Director: Roy William Neill

Genres: Crime | Film-Noir | Mystery | Romance | Thriller

Country: USA

Language: English

Release Date: 17 September 1943 (USA) 

During WWII several murders occur at a convalescent home where Dr. Watson has volunteered his services. He summons Holmes for help and the master detective proceeds to solve the crime from a long list of suspects including the owners of the home, the staff and the patients recovering there.

This is one of a good number of solid, interesting mysteries in the series of Sherlock Holmes movies starring Basil Rathbone & Nigel Bruce. This one takes the basic idea from the Doyle story "The Musgrave Ritual", and combines it rather freely with several other plot elements to create an essentially new mystery. Some of the additions are rather imaginative in themselves, and overall the mystery has the kind of intriguingly offbeat tone that fits well with the famous characters.

The setting has Watson staying in the Musgrave house, which is being used as a convalescent home for army officers, when a series of violent crimes breaks out. The mystery that arises combines suspense with an interesting puzzle that must be solved. The villain in many of the movies in the Universal series is known from the beginning, but this is one of the exceptions, allowing the viewer to try to deduce what is happening from the same clues that Holmes has available.

Rathbone and Bruce always work well together, and Dennis Hoey always adds some good moments whenever he appears as Inspectator Lestrade. Some of the secondary characters, especially some of the recovering officers, are also interesting. Although this, like the rest of the Universal Holmes features, is set in the (then) present, the setting in the old mansion gives it an atmosphere more like the earlier era of the Doyle originals. Anyone who enjoys the other features in the series should not be disappointed by this one.

Sherlock Holmes Faces Death

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Crime, Film-Noir, Films, Mystery, Reviews,

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The Pussycat Ranch (1978)

Director: John Christopher

Genres: Adult | Comedy | Western

Country: USA

Language: English

Also Known As: Pussycat Ranch

The rough life of the western cowboy was dirty in more ways than one. And how better to ease the pains and problems of a round up than at the whoopin'est, hootin'est, whorein'est cathouse in the west - Pussycat Ranch! That's right, an entire layout of voluptuous vixens eager to please their men in every imaginable way. And when the star pussycat of them all, Sweet Polly, gets ahold of Billy The Kid, well, you'll just have to watch it to find out! From haystack to four-poster, at PUSSYCAT RANCH the action never quits!

When this movie was made, there was either no actual Pussycat Ranch or it wasn't well-known...the setting is a working ranch (if a failing one) that is not, when things start, supposed to be a whorehouse.

Chacun à son goût, but I find the women prettier than the usual run, not all of them made that many movies, one sex-scene was a little unusual for its time (there was very little anal sex in American pornography then, and it was typically the province of B-list actresses crying-out in pain), a socially-redeeming warning about moonshine, and in the year of its making it stood-out nicely.

There was good cinematography, a plot, hilariously bad pseudo-attempts at humour, and both terrible but original music and some stolen from the best.

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Adult, Comedy, Films, Reviews, Western,

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Tales of Terror (1962)

Director: Roger Corman

Genres: Comedy | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Country: USA

Language: English

Release Date: 17 January 1964 (West Germany)

Three stories adapted from the work of Edgar Allen Poe. A man and his daughter are reunited, but the blame for the death of his wife hangs over them, unresolved. A derelict challenges the local wine-tasting champion to a competition, but finds the man's attention to his wife worthy of more dramatic action. A man dying and in great pain agrees to be hypnotized at the moment of death, with unexpected consequences.

Tales of Terror is a classic anthology of Edgar Allen Poe stories brought to life by Richard Matheson's writing and Roger Corman's directing. It's loaded with genre favorites and Vincent Price stars in all three tales (that right there is enough to make me watch). All three stories are indeed dark or humorous, or both, with The Black Cat being the strongest simply because of the interaction between Price and Peter Lorre. Price really hams it up in the wine tasting scene and I crack up every time. And Lorre is incomparable. This yarn does feature a black cat, but it's more like The Cask of Amontillado actually. The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar is something else that needs to be seen. Basil Rathbone stars in this one and looks remarkably like a beardless Wes Craven. It's uncanny. Let us not forget the first story, Morella. This one is a dark drama and doesn't offer any humor. It's still great though and Price's character here reminds me quite a bit of the one he played in The Pit and the Pendulum (another Corman/Poe production). If you like the other Corman adaptations of Poe, don't miss this one.

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Films, Horror, Mystery, Reviews,

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Eating Raoul (1982)

There’s a certain subset of cinephile culture that has deemed Eating Raoul a classic — heck, it even earned a spot in the Criterion Collection. And I don’t disagree with them. But despite the love from movie diehards, the horror comedy has remained a woefully underappreciated genre gem. To be sure, Eating Raoul skews further in the direction of comedy than horror (a fine counterpart to the twisted terrors of Parents, which you’ll find below), and the movie is light on gore, but it’s a pitch-perfect entry in the horror comedy lineage that hinges on the tropes of terror to land the punchline.

The film centers on a prudish, condescending married couple, appropriately named The Blands (Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov), who decide to take matters into their own hands when their lifestyle is cramped by the swingers and partygoers flooding their complex. When one of the unseemly bunch gets too aggressive with the lady of the house, the Blands get to murdering and it sets off an unhinged chain of events that culminates in a human feast.

Eating Raoul is hilarious, but it plays most of the humor subtly, and under Bartel’s direction, the violence gets the same treatment. In fact, most of the film plays out in deadpan, demanding the audience keep up with the visual gags and slyly delivered quips, with violence doled out in quick, unblinking spurts. A slick satire with plenty to say about capitalism and the comforts of suburbia, Eating Raoul will tickle your funny bone… just before it carves your arm and sells it for dog meat.

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Comedy, Crime, Films, Reviews,

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