Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Under Fifty Word Film Reviews

DDDDDD – Exceptional and unparalleled.
DDDDD – Excellent, a special film.
DDDD – High Enjoyable, recommended.
DDD – Worth watching, but unexceptional or flawed.
DD – Bland, dull and average.
D – An insult to the eyes and ears.

The Devil Rides Out: 1968, Christopher Lee, Charles Gray, Paul Eddington. Dir: Terence Fisher
Daft story about devil worshippers is given bite thanks to the dynamic Lee as he tries to save two souls from the superbly evil Charles Gray. Great direction and fine set pieces bring in the thrills, although a low budget spider attack is inexcusably bad, but is easily overlooked.
DDDD

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: 1939, Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, George Zucco. Dir: Alfred Werker
Holmes becomes a sort of boys' comic book hero in the 2nd Rathbone/Bruce film. The cast is first right; Rathbone, Bruce and villain Zucco are a delight to watch. Great fun, but it’s let down by script cuts that leave too much of the mystery unexplained.
DDDd

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOVE the devil rides out. manages to be creepy and funny and have christopher lee in it. and Satan! Sort of.

Matt said...

You've sold me on The Devil Rides Out. Will try and hunt it down immediately. I feel that "City Dragon" is screaming out for a review though....

In completely unrelated news, you may be interested to know that 90s pop superstars Right Said Fred can currently be seen on German TV, advertising washing powder. Their German is awful, but their t-shirts do indeed look very white.

Dave Paul Nixon said...

We have the ad over here too...
The biggest selling band of 1990, things really weren't that great back in the day.

City Dragon deserves a whole essay...

Anonymous said...

Oh how i long to see it one more time... CIty Dragon was one of the best viewing experiences of my life. It can't be topped. It was the best 1 quid i ever spent. You lucky person to own such a thing. Now you too can dump someone via rap. Beautiful.