Doctor Who #6: The Aztecs

The second surviving historical rather than sci-fi story has some excellent suspense, some terrible acting, and some interesting character development.

The TARDIS lands in 15th century Mexico and Barbara is instantly mistaken for the reincarnation of a high priest. Along with Ian, Susan, and The Doctor she quickly sees two sides of Aztec culture: a thirst for knowledge and thirst for blood, in the form of human sacrifice. Barbara wants to put a stop to the latter, but the Doctor has other ideas.

At its worst The Aztecs is like a pantomime, with obviously painted on cardboard sets, badly choreographed fight scenes and a "he's behind you" villain in the gurning High Priest of Sacrifice, Tlotoxl (familiar face character actor John Ringham).

The drama itself is well constructed though. The "why don't they just take off" problem is solved by trapping the TARDIS in a tomb, and out of reach. And both Ian and Barbara have close calls with death. Susan seems to disappear for a couple of episodes. As with William Hartnell in the Keys of Marinus, she took a two-week holiday so was written out of the script.

Most interesting is the continuing development of the character of the Doctor. After his rather passive start to the series, letting Ian take charge, he is now much more proactive. He reprimands both Ian and Barbara against interfering in history when they both want to turn the Aztecs away from bloodshed. He also ends up in a cheeky flirtation with and accidental engagement to a woman, Cameca. It pays off, as Cameca comes through with some vital knowledge at a key time.

Animal Crackers (1930)

A straightforward adaptation of their hit stage play of the same name, Animal Crackers is flatly filmed but propelled along by the manic energy of the stars.

The slim plot revolves around society matron Mrs Rittenhouse (played by regular Marx brother foil Margaret Dumont) holding a lavish party to celebrate the return of Captain Spaulding (Groucho) and his secretary Horatio Jameson (Zeppo) from his latest jaunt to Africa. The Professor (Harpo) and Signor Emanuel Ravelli (Chico) have been hired to provide musical entertainment but spend most of the time wreaking havoc. There is a side plot involving Rittenhouse's daughter, her boyfriend, and a valuable work of art, but who cares?

Like many films of that era, the direction is a little flat with the camera barely moving. Luckily, the stars are on top form, with a mix of one liners and superb physical comedy, all shot through with surreal anarchy. Even Zeppo manages to keep pace, especially in a classic scene with Spaulding dictating a letter in gibberish legalese.

The film also gives us two songs that would go on to define Groucho. "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" became the theme of Groucho's radio and TV game show You Bet Your Life. "Hello I must be Going" was the opening number of his famous Carnegie Hall concert in 1972

There also a few topical jokes from the time that are fascinating to read about nowadays. The controversial Eugene O'Neill play Strange Interlude was still in the news in 1930. It sees characters regularly stopping what they are doing to give soliloquies to the audience. At several points Groucho spoofs this by turning to the camera and intoning a nonsense monologue in a deep sombre voice.

In addition, the character of Captain Spaulding shares a name with a real-life person, a US Army captain arrested for selling cocaine to movie stars of the day.

Strangers on a Train (1951)

Strangers on a Train kicked off a golden era of work that would go on to include Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, North by Northwest, and Psycho. The subject matter is perfect for Hitchcock's mix of suspense and jet-black humour. The director packs the film with imagery, themes and great set pieces.

Bruno Antony (Robert Walker) reckons he has devised the perfect crime. While traveling on a train, he meets tennis player Guy Haines (Farley Granger). Bruno suggests the two strangers each agree to kill someone the other person wants gone. For Bruno, this means his hated father, and for Guy his wife Miriam, who will not grant him the divorce he craves to marry Anne Morton (Ruth Roman), the beautiful daughter of a U.S. Senator. Guy balks, but Bruno goes ahead and bumps off Miriam anyway. When Guy refuses to carry out his half of the bargain anyway, Bruno decides to frame Guy for the murder.

Strangers on a Train had a bumpy conception. Hitchcock fell out with the original screenwriter Raymond Chandler after a clash over their working styles. Hitch liked brainstorming sessions; Chandler preferred to be left alone to get on with the writing. Also, Hitchcock was not happy with being forced to cast the rather staid Granger and Roman, which was the price he paid for getting Walker.

It was a price worth paying because Walker creates one of my favourite screen villains. Intense, manipulative, but also vulnerable. Bruno starts off seeming to be in total control of the relationship between Haines and himself. This focus on his target is summed up in one image. Bruno sits in a crowd of people watching Guy play tennis. The heads of the crowd move from left to right as they follow the ball, but Bruno stays locked onto his target.

But the cracks start to show in his facade, and events being to spiral out of his control. A lighter stolen from Haines forms part of a plot to frame the tennis star for murder. But when Bruno loses the lighter down a drain, it becomes symbolic of his increasing desperation. The lighter almost feels like a magical object. If Bruno has it, he has some form of control over Guy.

The main recurring theme throughout the film is that of mirror images. This occurs in the main characters, as Bruno can be read as a Jungian shadow of Guy. It is in the editing, with the opening montage showing the two main characters heading to the train. They walk in opposite directions, but are otherwise indistinguishable. And the final scene mirrors the opening one, with a stranger inquiring "Aren't you Guy Haynes"? In this case, it is a harmless vicar. There are many more which reveal themselves with repeated viewings.

There are also other standard Hitchcock tropes. The police are portrayed as pig headed, stupid and unhelpful. It is left for Anne to do the bulk of the legwork to try and prove Guy's innocence.

The film also has a streak of jet-black comedy running through it. There is the knowing easy banter between Guy and the cop sent to tail him. And Pat (daughter of Alfred) Hitchcock plays Anne's sister, a character hilariously obsessed with the gory details of crime. In yet another mirror image reference, she becomes the focus of Bruno's unsavoury attention, as she bears an uncanny resemblance to Guy's late wife.

Doctor Who #5 The Keys of Marinus

The fourth story, Marco Polo, is missing in its entirety so it is straight onto the fifth. Writer Terry Nation makes a return after his triumph with the Daleks. It is a disjointed but enjoyable affair, even if the patchwork nature of the story is both a blessing and a curse.

The TARDIS arrive on a small island on the planet Marinus. The Doctor, his granddaughter Susan, and her former teachers Ian and Barbara meet Arbitan. He is the keeper of the Conscience of Marinus, a computer designed to keep law and order across the entire planet. It is under attack by humanoid beings called the Voord, who want to control the conscience. As a security device, the Conscience requires five keys. By blocking their access to the TARDIS, Arbitan forces the Doctor and his friends to go and look for them.

The first episode sets up an intriguing mystery. Creepy beings in diving suits and spiked helmets prowl around, while the cast disappear one by one. It feels like an Agatha Christie story.

After a quick bit of exposition, the story is up and away. A quest is set up, giving us one key per episode. The question of "why don't you just leave?" is also settled by having an invisible force field thrown around the TARDIS.

There is a mix of the established story format (they are separated from the TARDIS) with a new one (different worlds in each episode). This gives us a new world to explore each time, which means that while there is always something fresh, there is no chance to explore or develop the worlds or characters we meet. Which is a shame, as there are some interesting ideas here. I liked the decadent, Roman style planet. This is a place where life is devoted to leisure and people can have anything they want. Barbara can see that there is something sinister going on under the surface. There is a creepy atmosphere to that episode, with POV camera shots, and brains with eye stalks in a jar giving it the feel of a horror film. 

Later episodes are not as successful. One that sees everybody trapped in a mountainous region of the planet has a bewildering array of characters jammed into twenty minutes. The Doctor disappears for two of these episodes without a decent on-screen explanation. Off screen, there was no great drama, William Hartnell took a fortnight's holiday.

We also see them land in the middle of a classic locked room mystery. This turns into a courtroom drama, with Ian accused of murder.

The character development is a mixed bag, highlighting the problem that having too many companions poses to the story format. The Doctor continues to be more assertive despite being absent for two thirds of the story. Ian is still an unlikely but willing action man. Barbara also takes a more proactive role. This leaves poor Susan who just seems to scream and scream again. I am starting to understand Carole Anne Ford's frustrations with the role.

Doctor Who #3 - The Edge of Destruction

The Edge of Destruction is a two part story, conjured up at the last minute due to an episode shortfall. It is an unsettling, claustrophobic tale that also provides important character development.

The story sees the TARDIS seeming taken over by an alien force. The Doctor, his granddaughter Susan, and her teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright start acting strangely and even turn on each other.

The main character in this is the TARDIS itself. By presenting the ship as an enigmatic, seemingly conscious entity make the epsiodes feel like a haunted house story. It's definitely unsettling to see characters at each others throats. In particular the sight of Susan trying to attack people with a pair of Scissors, or the Doctor drugging Ian and Barbara after he suspects them of sabotage.

Compared to The Daleks there is less action, which means that the Doctor can take a bigger role. We also start to see a thaw in his icy character at the end. He even apologises to the others for not trusting them. This sees an end to the adversarial relationships the character enjoyed, and the start of them working together as a team.

The Giant Claw (1957)

Standard issue 1950s Sci-fi, with little to recommend beyond the hilariously goofy godawful puppet used for the titular character.

The plot is about a giant bird attacking cities around the world. There's no point trying to describe it, so I'll just show you a picture:

As usual with this genre, there is far too much talking and padding out the running time with stock footage. There's some gobbledygook about antimatter to explain the creature, but trying to understand it is a waste of time.

There is a doom laden apocalyptic tone at the end as the bird smashes up New York, but by then it's too little too late.

Doctor Who #2 - The Daleks

The Daleks is as important and ground-breaking as the previous serial An Unearthly Child. It also has some of the same issues with pacing.

The story starts with the Doctor, his granddaughter Susan, and their two fellow travellers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright landing the TARDIS in a petrified jungle. From there, they get caught up in a war between the Daleks, unseen creatures encased in distinctive mechanical shells and the Thals, an Aryan-like race of humanoids.

This incarnation of the Doctor has yet to settle down into the proactive heroic do-gooder we know and love. In the Daleks he sabotages the TARDIS to force everyone to explore the Dalek city. Ian remarks that the Doctor "has a knack for getting himself into trouble". Of course, that means it's not himself, but also his companions, two of whom are there against their will. Of course, if he had not, the Thals would have been eliminated by the Daleks. The Doctor remains a passive character in this story, with Ian leading the attempts to escape from the Daleks, and the later attack on their city.

There is some silly and frustrating padding, such as the scene with a Food making machine, and the pace of the story is at times glacial. It also soon becomes clear that too much inter-Dalek dialogue is grating and unlistenable. And why are the female Thals dressed like they're trying to be Playboy bunnies?

These minor quibbles aside, it is still a fantastic story. There is tension and a weird creepy atmosphere that runs throughout. The script has some undertones of racial intolerance and Nazis that would be explored further in later stories.

It's also fascinating to two things about both the Doctor and the Daleks. Firstly, at this stage, neither are encumbered by their own mythology. Secondly, how both have a very analogue 1960s version of advanced technology, with everything working from dials and printouts. And of course, the MacGuffin for the story is the mercury filled fluid link that, without which, the TARDIS is rendered completely immobile.

The Thing from Another World (1951)

The Thing from Another World is an entertaining mix of Cold War paranoia and Howard Hawks machismo.

The plot is based on "Who Goes There?", a short story by John W. Campbell. A group of scientists and US Air Force crew unearth a frozen flying saucer and its pilot near to their Arctic base. Unfortunately for them, the pilot has thawed out, is on the hunt for blood, and is impervious to their bullets.

There has been some confusion over who directed this film. Christian Nyby is the man on the credits, but. Howard Hawks, whose production company made the film, has often been mentioned as being the real talent behind the lens. Regardless of how true any claim is, there are some Hawks-like tropes, most noticeably in the rapid and overlapping dialogue.

In the original short story, the alien is a shape-shifter, imitating the characters, and causing tension and paranoia. In this version, it becomes a vegetable-based humanoid (memorably described as "an intellectual carrot"), immune to bullets and needing blood to regenerate. But there is still tension in the conflict between scientists and the military. The character of Dr Carrington in particular is shown as, if not an enemy, then at least a threat by wanting to reason with the creature rather than set it on fire. This makes a change from other sci-fi films of the era. Scientists are usually portrayed as the only people with the answers, working with or trying to keep the military in check.

It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955)

Alternating between grinding boredom and thrilling monster packed action, It Came from Beneath the Sea is worth the slog for the special effects genius of Ray Harryhausen.

A start-of-the-art submarine goes out of action in mysterious circumstances. Fishing boats disappear in Japan and Siberia. The evidence starts to point to a massive creature, disturbed from it's deep sea slumber by atomic testing. Can it be stopped before it destroys San Francisco?

There is far too much talking, whether is exposition, or typical 1950s sexist leering. There's a subplot of a relationship between the submarine commander Pete Mathews (Kenneth Tobey, largely reprising his turn in The Thing From Outer Space) and the lead scientist Professor Lesley Joyce. According to her colleague, Joyce is one of those new breed of women "who feel they're just as smart and courageous as men".

But these quibbles are soon forgotten once the creature itself appears. Harryhausen shows his usual attention to detail and fluidity of movement. His creations are as lifelike as the humans on screen.

Doctor Who #1 - An Unearthly Child

 

An Unearthly Child is essential viewing for anyone interested in Dr Who, even if it is something of a Curate's Egg. Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton are two school teachers in early 1960s London. They share the same gifted but bizarre pupil, Susan Foreman. They decide to team up to confront her mysterious guardian, known only as the Doctor, who seemingly lives in a junkyard, inside a Police Box.

The first episode is brilliant, and establishes the main characters quickly. Especially interesting is the title character. As the show is yet to get bogged down with its own mythology, the Doctor we see here is a genuine enigma. He has unclear motives and an abrasive streak in his character.

The story sets the template for a type of story that will recur throughout the show, even into the modern era. The Doctor and crew get separated from the TARDIS, and battle to fight their way back. In this case it is against hostile factions of a Stone Age tribe who have lost the power to make fire. This means, whatever else is going on, the stakes can be raised a certain amount, and solves the "why don't you simply take off again" problem. But, in An Unearthly Child there is very little else, and could have lost one of the four episodes to tighten the pace. There is plenty of creepy ambience, and the climax in the Cave of Skulls is far more gruesome than I would have expected for a children's show of that era.

The Doctor actually takes a back seat as the story progresses, with Ian being the proactive character who shows the cave people how to make fire again. This is a show that is, finding it's feet, but the basic elements are there. Oh, and for anyone who thinks the show is only nowadays a bastion of bleeding heart liberalism, at one point Ian and Barbara try to teach the cave dwellers about democracy and compassion with the phrase "a tyrant is not as strong as the whole tribe acting collectively".

 

 

Dracula's Daughter (1936)

As a sequel, Dracula's Daughter is overlooked and overshadowed by the Bela Lugosi original. Today it feels like a brave attempt to bring something fresh to the vampire mythology. The pace of the story and editing is snappier than the sometimes sluggish original. It is also loaded with fascinating symbolism and a great performance from Gloria Holden as the title character.

With a quick recap, the plot picks up at the end of the first film. Professor Van Helsing has been arrested (by Yorkshire policemen talking with "gor blimey guvnor" accents) for murder after destroying Count Dracula. He enlists the help of a psychiatrist friend Dr Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger) to try and prove his innocence. Meanwhile, Dracula's daughter, Countess Marya Zaleska has stolen and burnt the Count's body hoping to break free of the curse of vampirism. After a chance meeting with Dr Garth, she enlists him in her efforts. But Zaleska seems unable to curb her blood cravings, and takes to kidnapping young girls from the streets of London 

As much as I love the Universal monsters films, they are a boys club. (The obvious other exception is the Bride of Frankenstein, although the time the title character is on screen is minimal). So, to see a strong female protagonist who is the main focus of the film makes a refreshing change. Dracula's daughter has the same seductive power over both men and women as her father. Of course this raises the question, how did she become a vampire? Through her father? Is this child abuse?

This is very much a film of it's time, not least with it's fascination with psychoanalysis. Zaleska tries to enlist the help of Dr. Jeffrey Garth to cure what she thinks is a mental illness. This is a man who believes addicts should simply use their willpower, without examining the underlying causes. When new victims of the vampire appear the initial assumption is that is Dracula. I mean, God forbid that a woman should have the competence and initiative to stalk their own victims. This is, after all, a psychiatrist who spends his spare time shooting birds with his big gun. He also stumbles over tying a tie. Only Janet, his long suffering secretary, can finish him off.

Casque d'Or (1952)

Despite being set in La Belle Époque, Casque d'Or is not a stuffy period drama. Director Jacques Becker creates a rich and believable world that is also vibrant and contemporary.

The story centres around Marie (Simone Signoret), the girlfriend of Roland, a gangster in a small French town. After a chance meeting, Marie she falls for Georges, a humble carpenter, and her boyfriend's jealousy leads to a fatal showdown.

The subdued tone means little or no histrionics or melodrama, even in the confrontation scene between Georges and Roland. There is no explicit violence, but the coldness and the closeup shots are chilling and uncomfortable. There is no music and glamorization of what is happening.

When Georges goes on the run there is also an interesting contrast between the dark, dense city, full of crime and death and the wide expansive and peaceful countryside.

The haunting finale mirrors the opening. This is a film with a bleak worldview. Georges is an honourable man in a dishonest world. Everyone does the decent thing, and nobody is happy.

Machine-Gun Kelly (1958)

Machine Gun Kelly is a change of pace from Roger Corman's more common 1950s output of cheap monster movies. It has an intelligent script, lean muscular direction from Roger Corman, and a brooding early performance from Charles Bronson.

Bronson plays George "Machine Gun" Kelly, a bank robber with two major obsessions - death, and a particular type of firearm. After a particularly successful job, Kelly is now Public Enemy Number One. Tensions grow in his gang, especially his partner in crime Flo Becker (Susan Cabot), who starts to question if he is a real man.

The screenplay uses Freudian elements to create a title character who is more than one dimensional. Kelly is infantilised by everyone around him. He has a fear of death that is repeatedly triggered by symbols that he sees. And he is a snivelling coward once deprived of his phallic machine gun. As well as making for interesting characterisation, this approach allows Corman to refute accusations that he is glorifying criminals.

Corman's directorial stylistic high point would come later, with his rich and surreal adaptions of several Edgar Allan Poe stories. Here, he shows the versatility and good taste to know that what he needs to do is to keep things focussed and moving. However, there are some great stylistic choices, such as the wordless opening sequence, showing a violent bank robbery that ends in the death of a security guard.

Road to Morocco (1942)

The third of seven films Bob Hope and Bing Crosby made together during the 40s and 50s, Road to Morocco is pure entertainment that feels fresh and funny today.

The plot is never too important in these sorts of things, acting as a way of dumping the pair in the middle of nowhere so that they can wisecrack their way back home. In this case, the pair are shipwrecked after Hope blows up the vessel they were stowing away on, before drifting into Morocco.

Of course, being 1940s Hollywood, this is the 1940s Hollywood version of Morocco. Everybody is white and speaks either heavily accented English or gibberish. But, the series was always intended as a spoof of the hit film genres of the day, so it feels more like a parody of those tropes rather than a celebration.

The non stop wisecracking from Hope is broken up with an occasional musical interlude from Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour provides the love interest. There is also a charming and refreshing sense of self awareness. Hope regularly breaks the fourth wall to talk to the audience or complain about Crosby sabotaging his Oscar hopes. Even a Camel stops to comment on how this is the screwiest picture he's was ever been in.

The Black Sleep (1956)

The Black Sleep is an intriguing and little seen low budget horror film, with a dream cast of genre veterans.

In Victorian England, a brilliant surgeon, Sir Joel Cadman (Basil Rathbone) is trying to find a way to revive his beloved wife from a coma caused by a brain tumor. But, his methods are a little unscrupulous, as Cadman employs a powerful anesthetic from India to induce a death like state in his test subjects. He uses it to snatch a fellow Doctor, Gordon Ramsey, from Death Row, where Ramsey is awaiting execution for a murder he denies carrying out. Cadman wants Ramsay's help, but as Ramsey soon discovers, not all Cadman's previous experiments have been so successful.

Rathbone is on fine form, making Cadman initially seem charming and even sympathetic, but slowly revealing him to be cruel and insane.

His co-stars are not always as lucky. Lon Chaney Jr hams it up as Mungo, a former scientific genius who has been turned into a crazed madman by the good doctor's experiments. But poor Bela Lugosi, in his final filmed role, is left without a word to say. The underwritten character of Cadman's butler feels like it was written to put Lugosi's name on the posters.

Tor Johnson, Lugosi's co-star in the Ed Wood films Plan 9 from Outer Space and Bride of the Monster, has some fun as the sort of lurking bulk of a monster he excelled at.

The highlight comes in the form of John Carradine, playing another of Cadman's victims. Carradine does not hold back, even by his usual standards, as the climax sees the inmates taking over the asylum.

The Body Snatcher (1945)

The Body Snatcher is a classic example of a film that has all the ingredients on paper, but which never comes to life.

The screenplay is based on a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson. The film stars no less than Boris Karloff as the title character, John Gray, a shifty cab driver who has a sideline sourcing and delivering dead bodies for top surgeon Wolfe "Toddy" MacFarlane (Henry Daniell, best known as Goebbels parody Garbitsch in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator). Bela Lugosi has a small role as MacFarlane's other cadaver consultant, but the fact that he barely registers should be an alarm bell for the rest of the film.

Producer Val Lewton had previously given us Cat People, The Curse of the Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie. These films, despite their lurid titles, have an unsettling mix of atmosphere and ambiguity. This kept the viewer intrigued and on edge. Director Robert Wise would go on to have an eclectic career, from editing montages for Citizen Kane, to directing everything from low key noir classics like The Set Up to big budget epics like The Sound of Music and Star Trek: The Motion Picture

 

There are some interesting ideas in The Body Snatcher, particularly with regard to class, and how those at MacFarlane's level feel like they can get away with flouting the law. But, largely it is talk, endless talk, with little or nothing left to the imagination of the viewer, the central strength of Lewton's former work. One for the Karloff / Lewton / Lugosi completists only.

 

 

Behemoth the Sea Monster (1959)

Cheap and cheerful, Behemoth the Sea Monster borrows from the American giant monster films of the 1950s, especially director Eugène Lourié's earlier influential classic The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. It's worth a look for the novelty of the London setting, the appearance of Hammer Horror regular André Morell, and the final FX work by King Kong legend Willis O'Brien.

American scientist Steve Karnes (Gene Evans) is giving a speech to British scientists about marine life and the dangers by nuclear testing. Later, he learns of thousands of lifeless fish washed ashore on the Cornish coast and the death of a fisherman from radiation burns. Teaming up with Professor James Bickford (Morell) to investigate, the pair find a passenger ship destroyed, with the loss of all on board, while tests show the dead fish were full of radioactive contamination. Karnes begins to suspect the creature the fisherman described seeing is a beast mutated by nuclear testing, with a desire to come back to London.

In the first ten minutes we get all the tropes you expect from this genre. 1) A conference of scientists with ominous warnings. 2) A bureaucrat who dismisses said warnings. 3) A pretty girl, and a hunky love interest. 4) somebody having a deadly encounter with something, linked to the opening scene, and shot from the point of view of the something. 5) The dying man muttering portentous semi coherent warnings with his dying breath. Following this comes lots of padding, occasional exposition, further deaths and possible monster sightings. Finally, the full reveal of the monster and a trail of destruction. In this respect, Behemoth the Sea Monster is no different, but it is still entertaining for the most part. There is some hokey Dr Who level rubber glove puppet special FX, some atmospheric scenes in Cornwall, and the always watchable Morell.

In fairness, the stop motion monster in the final scenes is not too bad considering the low budget, and this was the final credited work of Willis O'Brien. While he did not invent the technique, he refined and brought it to popular attention through King Kong, inspiring the likes of Ray Harryhausen.

Lourie would go on to give the monster smashing up London in the more colourful and fun Gorgo. This took the action from destroying anonymous docks and houses, to smashing London landmarks like Tower Bridge.

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942)

Taking the master detective out of Victorian London into World War Two, Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon has little in common with anything penned by Conan Doyle, but it is a hokey, entertaining spy thriller.

Holmes (Basil Rathbone) is up against his old nemesis Professor Moriarty (Lionel Attwill who had played Dr Mortimer in the earlier Rathbone version of The Hound of the Baskervilles), with both on the trail of a missing scientist and his invention, a revolutionary bomb sight that could change the course of the war.

The screenplay take it's cue from the Conan Doyle short story The Adventure of the Dancing Men, but there is little left of the original, beyond the plot device of an alphabet substitution code. The character of Holmes is a world away from the dispassionate Victorian gentleman, only taking cases that tickled his intellectual fancy. Here is a paid up patriotic Brit, doing his bit against the Nazis. As such there are no baffling, impossible murder mysteries to solve, just standard spy stuff like disguises and code breaking. Nevertheless, Rathbone brings the sort of energy and focus needed for the part, and Nigel Bruce as Watson is dimwitted but so charming and affable it is impossible not to like him.

In keeping with the secret agent feel of the film, Lionel Atwill plays Moriarty like a James Bond villain, and even has a secret lair with trapdoors and an entrance hidden by a moving bookcase.

The propaganda is kept to a minimum for most of the film, with the war being the McGuffin to drive a standard espionage plot. It only takes over in the closing minutes, with Holmes gazing wistfully into the distance reciting the "Fortress built by nature" speech from Richard II.

Robot Monster (1953)

Robot Monster is a rite-of-passage for anyone with an interest in 50's B-Movies and has long been staple of those Worst Films Ever lists that were all the rage in the 80s and 90s.

Ro-Man, an Alien Robot that in no way bears a striking resemblance to a man wearing a gorilla suit and a diving helmet, is on a mission to destroy all human life on Earth with his Calcinator death ray. He is achingly close to getting the job done, except for half a dozen humans that stubbornly remain alive; a scientist, his wife, their two daughters, his young son Johnny and his assistant, who have all somehow developed an immunity to the death ray. As if that's not bad enough for poor Ro-Man, he has developed an illogical attraction to Alice, the eldest daughter.

It's true that the film contains much that is easy to sneer at. The story makes little sense, the acting is wooden, the Death Ray seems to be a bubble machine with a TV antenna, and the four day shooting schedule is reflected in a few fluffed lines.

But, one thing you could never call it is dull. The sheer insanity and invention coupled with a total lack of any irony or self-awareness gives Robot Monster a delirious energy sorely lacking from other examples of this genre, or their modern-day equivalents such as the Sharknado franchise. Special mention goes to the generous use of stock footage for spacecraft and ruined cities from the likes of Rocketship X-M, Lost Continent, Flight to Mars and Captive Women. Oh, and dinosaurs from One Million B.C., because Ro-Man can also unleash giant lizards on the earth or something.

Despite the recycled special effects, the score is completely original and by no less a Hollywood luminary than Elmer Bernstein. A few years before his classics such as The Man with the Golden Arm and The Magnificent Seven, Bernstein was still a jobbing composer, and had, according to him, been side-lined in some areas of Hollywood due to his left-wing politics. His score for Robot Monster is a mix of bombastic and discord and sounds like it should belong in a much better film.

There is also a Shaggy dog story twist ending (SPOILER ALERT), which actually makes the whole baffling premise work. It turns out the whole thing has been a nightmare in the mind of little Johnny, which explains the incoherent and childish feel to the plot.

County Hospital (1932)

It's standard in the world of Laurel and Hardy that no good deed goes unpunished. In County Hospital, Olly is recovering from a broken leg, and Stan's attempts to cheer him up with a visit only make things worse. While it never really comes to life like one of their classics, it's certainly enjoyable and funny.

While it's wrong to say all Laurel and Hardy films are the same, the routines often follow many of the same structures. In this case, Stan means well, causes a problem, tries to fix it, and makes everything much worse. So, what starts as a spilled jug of water ends up with a doctor clinging for dear life out of a window and Olly being evicted from his hospital bed with his trousers and dignity in shreds. All because Stan came to visit as he "had nothing better to do."

After Stan sits on a hypodermic needle full of tranquiliser, his attempts to drive Olly home take a dizzying and surreal turn. The back projection of swerving traffic is completely unbelievable but is perhaps indicative of the state of Stan's head. Needless to say, it does not end well for the car.