Under Fifty Word Film Reviews 2

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 – A cinematic turd.

Mad Love (1933) Peter Lorre, Colin Clive, Francis Drake Dir: Carl Freund.

Obsessive surgeon Lorre is in love with Drake. When her pianist husband Clive’s hands are destroyed in an accident, Lorre replaces them with the hands of a killer. Surprisingly dark even with censorship. Lorre’s performance and the expressionistic style of master cameraman Freund makes this a creepy and sinister classic.

DDDDd

We Are Together (2007) Dir: Paul Taylor

Phrases like life affirming and genuinely touching are thrown about often, but you’d have to have a heart of titanium not to have your heart warmed by this documentary about a South African orphan’s choir, whose success may decide the future of the orphanage. You couldn’t write a script this poignant.

DDDDD

Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Henry Daniell, Evelyn Ankers. Dir: John Rawlins

Holmes and Watson are inexplicably transported to ww2 to fight the Nazi’s. It may be unsubtle propaganda, but a fast paced plot, an excellent cast and some stylish direction makes this still worthwhile. And Rathbone is just unstoppable…

DDDD