fillherupjacko Reviews

Calculated Risk (1963)

piggin it on two quid a week

[5/10 · 6 July 2015]

Relentlessly grim Brit caper movie, from the dying days of the black and white B era.

A gang of villains plot to rob a bank by tunnelling through the cellar of an adjacent bombed house.

Spoiler

Unfortunately for them there's an unexploded German bomb down there, a reminder that they are still living under the shadow of the second world war - 60s London in this film is all snow, cups of tea and frowzy parlours, the only character with any life left in them the would be girlfriend of one of the villains, who proves too clumsy to accept what she wants to give.

One point of note is the soundtrack by none other than George Martin. It's sort of half way between Johhny Dankworth and the Ipress File score.

Hidden Homicide (1959)

Oh, Michael!

[24 March 2011]

After opening titles of sinister hypnotic music and swirling water, we're in a London apartment where Michael Cornforth, a writer, (Griffiths Jones) is making ready for bed. The next morning when he awakes he's not only fully dressed and in a completely different place in the sticks – he's also holding a gun! After a bewildered nosey round the gaff, this being a black and white second feature, he of course finds a dead body - in the kitchen. Two Rank charm school types, Jean (played by Patricia Laffan) a bossy nosey parker type certainly, a lesbian possibly – and Marian, a beautiful trance like possibly drug addicted living doll – call round on, of all things, a walking holiday. They're soaked to the skin (it is, after all ,raining) and seeking shelter. This being Britain in the 1950, Cornforth can't tell them to do one so he only goes and lets them in doesn't he. After lots of farcical trying to keep them out of the kitchen stuff while not appearing to be totally odd - and Jean informing Cornforth that her friend is "very nervy and imaginative – always expecting to find bodies under the bed" - Marian upsets the Saxa salt and one textbook scream later discovers the corpse. Not unnaturally the two girls try and bail out. Cornforth prevents this at gunpoint – and then things begin to get really silly. He wants to talk to Jean who then simply goes off with him for a nice chat while leaving Marian in the bedroom without explanation like a naughty child. Cornforth says he can prove he was in London last night as his neighbour Mungo Jerry – or Peddy – saw him. Jean then goes from "You murdered him (not Mungo) didn't you?" to "I can take care of Marian. No one believes her anyway" in the blink of an eye. Why I'm not sure. It can't be Cornforth's charisma. Later on Jean informs Cornforth that she's had Marian sent to hospital. "They've got her under heavy sedation. She'll be out for 24 hours." With friends like that?

All in all Hidden Homicide – in terms of characterisation, plotting and probability - charters new waters of terribleness even by the standards of the British black and white 1950s B movie.

An American Tragedy (1931)

not von Sternberg's best

[7/10 · 4 March 2010]

Clyde, a poor boy whose mother runs a home for the needy, attains a job as a bell hop. From the very first he wants more; he's trying to break a date to see a ritzy dame who has taken a shine to him carrying her bags. Ma don't approve of his new friends though – "Boys and girls like that are the only friends I've got" – and after he's involved in a drink driving accident he sets out for New York (Mum's praying here is ludicrous. A sentimental note out of keeping with von Sternberg films.)

Now Clyde has risen to foreman of the stamping department in his uncle's Samuel Griffiths collar and shirt factory. These are the best scenes of the film – the depth in the composition of the shots is incredible – with the girls squeaking away on their stampers and flicking their hair as Clyde walks passed.

Sylvia Sydney catches his eye and is very Dietrich like in her mockingly wry approach to Clyde with "I hope you like the collar business" and "You really seem happy Mr. Griffiths" as he pulls a sulk when she won't let him come to her room. If it's not the sensual sound of the water – the film is divided into chapters with dream-like, ominous shots of the water – it's the sound of the girls stamping away, all examples of von Sternberg recording sound in an artificial manner. Listen to the bit where the newsboy is chanting "bad results of accident."

Most of which von Sternberg directs in a perfunctory manner. He isn't interested in the effect that social conditions have on people's motivations/ actions (surely the theme of the book). In his films, people are only roused from their world weary inertia because of their own feelings.

In short, von Sternberg is unsuited to the material. With such an unwieldy novel to film there are too many scenes where he simply points the camera at the actors (like almost every other director does) in boring scenes necessary for plot advancement. Compare this with the contemporaneous Shanghai Express, a film conceived and written by von Sternberg which never fails to be visually compelling, and the Scarlett Empress whose visual quality is unprecedented, perhaps in the whole of cinema.

The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre: The Man Who Was Nobody (1960) Season 1, Episode 3

In the first place, you're a woman. That's undeniable.

[3/10 · 23 February 2010]

James Tynewood, a young man of fixed income and expensive tastes who doesn't believe in working for a living – easy with the money and even easier with the ladies - buys a ring ("There's no finer stone in London or Paris or New York") for some bird from a ritzy West End jeweller: price, 8 big ones. Then he disappears. His lawyer, against his better judgement, hires a woman, a Marjorie Stedman, played by Hazel Court (six months ago she wrote a story about beatniks. Pardon? You know, people who drink and gamble - OK, so she's no John Pilger) to find him and pass on a message that: South Africa Smith is back! Court goes undercover: by night with the beatniks in the attacks and cellars of Chelsea, at a casino (with Paul Eddington) and at the jewellers where Tynewood bought the ring with his fiancé. "I think she's a showgirl – the way she carried herself." Anway, Tynewood gets all washed up, literally, on the muddy banks of the Thames – death by manual strangulation – and it's left to Court and Scotland Yard to unravel this Edgar Wallace mystery.

Three Sundays to Live (1957)

stick to the sideroads

[3/10 · 9 February 2010]

Big band leader, Frank (that's the leader of a big band. Kieron Moore, who plays Frank, isn't especially big, although he is Irish – you may recognise him from 60s TV such as Randall and Hopkirk and Department S) while working after hours in the Flamingo nightclub, takes a mysterious blonde, who calls herself Ruth, to see his boss, Nick Barnes. Frank opens the door to Barnes's office just as Barnes is being blasted. With a gun. This being a 1950s b film, Ruth, his alibi, disappears. According to the police she died in a railway crash seven years ago. In the subsequent trial Frank is convicted of murder and faces the high jump in three week's time – with only his Judy, Judy (Jane Griffiths) trying to clear his name.

Three Sundays to Live is a Danziger production, which accounts for it being a bit, well, rubbish. I don't believe any of their films were ever shown on TV – I could be wrong – not even in the Spartan days of three channel Britain. Film stock, while on location, is drastically under developed while, on set, actor's voices fail to attend the viewer's ear. The acting isn't that convincing either – Kieron Moore's accent careens between hard boiled American and Rada. Plot lines are risible, sometimes unintentionally – murdered nightclub proprietor Barnes had business interests on the continent, run by Al Murray (not that one) – and the police are scarily blinkered in their convictions – and sometimes just scary – "I can have you broken for this."

All in all Three Sundays To Live offers little, even for enthusiasts of drab British b films of the era.

The Frightened City (1961)

Cirrhosis of the heart. It comes from loving your job

[7/10 · 22 April 2009]

A perspiring 1960s bloke, wearing a gabardine raincoat and Chelsea boots, is chased down an alleyway (no, not like that – he's wearing trousers after all.) In hot pursuit - a car (or motorcar, as they were known back then) which promptly drives into him, deliberately apparently, and at terrifying speed! 60s bloke may not be going anywhere but we are – round black and white London, aka the frightened city. It doesn't look all that frightened – no shots of people cowering in terror. But wait! In one of those sophisticated and seedy private drinking clubs – the sophistication implied by a shot of a soda siphon – "the chaps" are smashing the gaff up. "What we want is a law to catch villains and not hamper the police", opines Sayers (a policeman, not the bakers, played by John Gregson, who is far more hardboiled here than in Tomorrow at Ten). This is consistent with the theme that runs throughout the film of over-worked police pining for a mythical age of the gentleman crook.

Enter Waldo (Herbert Lom) who has a master plan to get the top chaps together – one of whom, Harry (Alfred Marks) has a problem - a suitcase full of protection dough. "That's a problem?" asks Lom. (Harry is a superb character, a really early genuine representation of London villainy.) The heads of London's gangland firms promptly carve up the capital (quite literally) teaming up to keep the "teds and tearaways at bay", pooling resources and profits. Their no nonsense methods, however, begin to attract the attention of not only plod but the Home Secretary ("some of these boys are lively on the cosh.") Exit Tanky Thomas - and enter Damion (Sean Connery). Damion is a cat burglar whose partner, Wally (Kenneth Griffith) is currently indisposed after tumbling off a roof. "I've got to provide Wally with the comforts", says Connery (no explanation is proffered for the Scottish accent, by the way).

Damion might be a burglar but he knows how to order a meal in fancy Italian restaurant Sanchetti's. He's also after some comforts for himself, by the look of it, namely Anya "I'm sorry, darlink" (Yvonne Romain). We first see her under Lom's wing – or, to be exact, pressed against the desk in his office. Miss Rush, Lom's secretary, has an annoying habit of popping in whilst Lom is trying to give Anya – ahem – career advice. He wants her to perform at The Temples ("It's not exactly the Palladium") a nightclub full of geriatric off duty brigadiers complete with eye popping monocles (her "I larffed at lerve" routine is beyond comedy) – whilst keeping an eye on Damion (she ends up giving him more than the eye). Damion thinks she's a sweet kid but Anya's really only a brass with Lom as her pimp – "Anya, meet Lord Bunch!" The protection alliance begins to fall apart when gang leader Alf gets the hump. So Alf hits back with his gang – supplemented by some yobbos he's brought down from Brum – and start smashing up the protection's interests. Sanchetti's even gets blown up by a handgrenade. Blimey!

Sid and Nancy (1986)

never mind

[1/10 · 26 February 2009]

This is a film made by someone who clearly has no love for the Sex Pistols or even any real knowledge of them. Research for this project appears to have been conducted purely through reference to the tabloid presses' depiction of the band – and who wants to see that? John Lydon, a man who wrote God Save The Queen among other things (a lyric surely comparable with anything by Lennon or Dylan) is portrayed as a talentless thug. Steve Jones, an amusing and engaging bloke on anyone's terms, seen here is nothing but a borderline psychopath. Gary Oldman, good actor that he is, does his best impersonation of Sid's lugubrious, cockney drawl but he's a little too healthy looking, in truth.

Even as a depiction of 1977, the film fails to convince. The Sex Pistols play to a room exclusively full of "punks" who resemble American punks contemporary to when the film was made, i.e. leather jackets and Mohicans. Check out archive footage of the Pistols and it didn't happen that way. The majority of the audience still had long hair and flares. Even some of the punk bands had members who weren't particularly punk. Spiky hair and ripped t-shirts were seemingly a step too far back then. Most shocking of all, the racial change that the singer of X-Ray Spex undergoes is more startling than Michael Jackson's.

The main problem with the film – or any retrospective Rock n Roll film – is the music. Actors - or hired session men - can never hope to emulate the voices/ presence/ energy of the original band. (Do you think the Beatles would ever have made it if they'd sounded like they did in Backbeat?) Here, the Sex Pistols are portrayed as nothing but a worthless gimmick; a construction of a Svengali manager who took any four hoodlums and placed them in sensational situations. It panders to readers of The Sun and clever people who think they're being fooled if they don't say "Oh yeh – nothing but a media gimmick, yeah – couldn't really play, yeh" – i.e. people who think they're clever but who are, in actual fact, idiots. Avoid.

The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre: Clue of the New Pin (1961) Season 1, Episode 6

If you won't marry me, I'm going to have to murder you

[11 February 2009]

The original mystery millionaire, John Tredmere (David Horne) is visited at his sumptuously furnished London mansion by Ramsey Brown (Clive Morton). Brown wants Tredmere to give him a cut of his fortune. Tredmere wants Brown to go to Hell, "which is where I thought you were." Tredmere is also unhappy with nephew Rex Lander (Paul Daneman – who often pops up in the Edgar Wallace series) his private secretary. Tredmere is indeed a curmudgeonly old buffer.

Lander decides to bump Uncle off when he learns from Ramsey Brown that he is not the next of kin. Years ago, Tredmere had a son out East, who's now "serving chop suey to the scum of the earth." Lander leaves Tredmere's body in a locked vault in the basement of the mansion with the vault's only key on a table inside. How did he do that?

Ramsey Brown returns wanting a cut of the inheritance – so, naturally, Lander bumps him off too. Lander is now under suspicion from Supt. Carver (Bernard Archard) but fighting his corner is TV presenter Tab Holland (James Villiers) one of those annoying friends who is determined to solve the mystery without realising that his friend is the murderer. Also on board is Holland's fiancé, Jane (Katherine Woodville.) Her engagement to Holland doesn't stop Lander from proposing to Jane himself. "For the 25th time – no!"

Jane wasn't above giving some private succour (no, not like that) to old Tredmere when he was still of this earth. He was a bit lonely, she tells Scotland Yard (a rare bit of characterisation from the normally one dimensional Wallace).

The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre: The Fourth Square (1961) Season 2, Episode 1

the Embassy Club

[21 January 2009]

A ritzy bedroom - Belgrave Square, London - the kind that has a safe hidden behind a painting, and a masked intruder is robbing the jewellery and murdering the maid.

Belgrave square, 1961 – you know the sort of thing, a white building of apartments with black and white check floors. Inspector Forbes (Basil Dignam) calls on the returning occupants, a Mr and Mrs Stewart. Nina Stewart (Delphi Lawrence) nips round to see Bill Lawrence (Conrad Phillips) a lawyer who spends his time lounging with feet up on his office desk, toying with a soda syphon. The emerald jewellery which Mrs Stewart has had stolen was a gift from her boyfriend, Alvarez, a sort of sinister, continental playboy (a staple character of Wallace's books) and she doesn't want it getting in the papers. A passage into the papers would most likely be provided by Henry Adams (Paul Daneman), a public relations secretary to her husband. Adams falls under suspicion on account of his having a key to the apartment – but that's OK because Mr Stewart gives him one when he goes a way – a key, that is. On account of strange squares – four strips making a square shape – left on the wall at the crime scene, the police suspect a thief called McGuire – the squares at the scene of the crime was his emblem – however, he's otherwise detained (dead in Newport Pagnell).

Bill Lawrence, despite various attempts on his life, seems to have great fun solving this one, including pulling one of Alvarez's girlfriends, Marie (Jacqueline Jones), a sort of blonde, French Shirley Ann Field, and taking her to the Embassy Club – note, not the Bernard Manning one – to see Josetta's cabaret. Josetta (Miriam Karlin no less, she's the Catlady in A Clockwork Orange) is Alvarez's estranged wife. The entertainment consists of a magic act and a lot of big girls dancing round in big knickers.

There are lots of suspects and a very obvious red herring, in effete, home hairdresser Gordon, in this one. The real villain only appears in the story late on (apart from in photograph) so it's difficult to care.

The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre: Man at the Carlton Tower (1961) Season 2, Episode 2

familiar faces

[21 January 2009]

Lew Daney (Nigel Green, Caine's dodgy boss in The Ipcress File) is robbing a safe at a costume jewellers. This being 1961, he's wearing a shirt and tie. Look, it's just how they did things back then. Anyway, the alarm goes off and Daney ends up shooting a policeman while making good his escape.

Three days later and Scotland Yard are still baffled. Det. Supt. Cowley (Allan Cuthbertson, "that lawyer geezer" from Performance) decides to bring in Tim Jordan (Lee Montague, he pops up twice in The Sweeney), a big police cheese in Rhodesia before he retired after inheriting a fortune. They meet for lunch at the Carlton Tower hotel, one of those places where things are flambéed at the table. Previously, in the foyer, Jordan had bumped into Harry Stone (Alfred Berk – he only popped up once in The Sweeney.) Stone knows Daney from Rhodesia and Jordan isn't sure if they're best friends or worst enemies.

Meanwhile, Stone is making busy at a Soho nightclub owned by Daney. Daney agrees to meet him at a lonely spot down a country lane and take him to the loot. Man alive, wake up, Stone! Daney didn't think twice about shooting a cop and now with undisguised glee he's flexing his drawstring gloves at the prospect of bumping off you… This is another Edgar Wallace Mystery. Directed by Robert Tronson, on account of its location footage, it's a bit more progressive than other episodes from series two.

The Long Memory (1953)

As I went down one May morning

[8/10 · 23 December 2008]

Mudflats of Kent's barren landscape (the suitably named Gravesend, to be precise) – and then John Mills at Waterloo Station. He's carrying a brown paper parcel – the tell-tale sign of a man just out of clink – and he's being tailed by John Horsley (Doc Morrissey – "the wizard of the aspirin" - from Reggie Perrin, Perrin fans).

Back at the mudflats, Mills pipes aboard a stationary barge. An oddball tries to befriend him - "Nice to have a friend down here. It's a bit lonely sometimes. Would you like a cup of tea?" – but Mills is having none of it. He's so hell bent on revenge that he's probably going to Hell.

Here, Hell is a memory you can't let go of.

In flashback, we see his fiancé's (Elizabeth Sellars) father who's helping to ship someone on the run to Rotterdam. Mills gets involved with a rampaging Boyd (John Chandos) and the boat goes down in flames. He's convicted of murder when his fiancé and Pewsey (John Slater), a bronchial moron, lie in court that there was no "other man" on the boat.

Twelve years later, Mills' fiancé is married to the police officer involved in the original case (John McCallum). . . . . .

Mills is superb in this. He doesn't do very much – just simmers away. His emotions are reflected in the bleak and desolate landscape. Characters are monosyllabic; strange derelicts peopling a landscape of riverside scrublands that almost anticipates Beckett. The dirt and decay of Mill's home is contrasted with his former fiancé's family show home. It's like looking at the negative of a photograph.

All the main characters face a moral dilemma. Elizabeth Sellars lied in court to protect her father. Her decision to lie means that her husband will have to resign – they'll lose their home – she'll go to prison. She decides to leave the country (if only her old man was still around to help her!) A few hours later and she's trying to jump under a train. Her life is quite literally unravelling because of her original decision.

Most interesting of all is when the "dead" Boyd reappears. We are now watching a film about a man wrongfully convicted of murdering someone he didn't murder – who isn't actually dead – about to murder the man he was wrongfully convicted of killing.

Scotland Yard Dragnet (1957)

"You're the nicest person I know. You're the only person I know!"

[3/10 · 23 December 2008]

Aka Scotland Yard Dragnet (a slight oxymoron as it features neither a police dragnet nor, till the final part of the film, anyone from Scotland Yard.)

Val Neal (Paul Carpenter) is a pilot who ejects after a test-flight goes wrong. "He'll break his neck at that speed" exclaims some bod at ground control. We see, potentially, a dead man floating on a parachute, lord of the flies style. Carpenter isn't dead though (it's just his acting – bum tish!) although he suffers fits; blackouts which he's unaware of. These are hilarious to watch - all phoney hyperventilation and swooping orchestral soundtrack. This is all consistent with a general bemusement about mental illness. When his fiancé (Pat Roc) is informed that his illness is psychosomatic, she replies: "What does that mean?" Pat brings in her uncle (Roland Culver), a sort of psychiatrist/ hypnotist, to treat Carpenter; although his treatment appears to involve having Wang the houseboy serve up cigars and fortified wine in the smoke-filled library.

Pretty soon we realise that something's amiss – not so much with the patient but with sinister Dr Culver; his intimate questions reveal a less than wholesome interest in his niece. Thrown into the mix is annoying bitch Miss Barbara Barton – "she writes lurid love stories and sells them by the hundred thousand" – who Culver strangles before offering Carpenter up to the cops (she's the doc's ex wife).

In the meantime, Carpenter has wondered off round London, still hypnotised, and ended up in the Downbeat Club. It's all coke (no, not that kind) and coffees here but he still manages to get himself picked up – by a character billed only as Jazz Club Blond.

All in all, this film does for hypnotism what Reefer Madness did for marijuana.

Roadhouse Girl (1953)

If you keep on doing it you'll go to hell.

[11 December 2008]

This is a film made for post-war austerity Britain's female cinema-goers. Its opening credits, featuring a shot of London Road, representing, for Marilyn (Sandra Dorne) the road out of drabness and rationing and everything closed and cold on a Sunday - just as they sit in the cinema and enjoy an hour's escape of wish fulfilment.

Marilyn mirrors the hopes of the female audience in that the road will lead to a bit of life and glamour. Anything would be better than old hubby George (Leslie Dwyer) and his garage/ café.

We see Marilyn dancing about in her husband's dismal road side café to American big band music on the jukebox ("bloody row"). Her body, almost trying to break free of the shackles of 50s clothes, only prompts her husband to say: "You'll catch your death of cold."

George can't understand her and resents her wanting something better. But what is there to be had anyway in 50s Britain? "I've given you all the comforts. A gas-fire in every room – and electric light!" Humiliatingly, she can't even leave him and return to Dad as hubby has hired her from him in a bizarre arrangement. "£2 a week."

Marilyn's life changes when mechanic, Tom (Maxwell Reed) is hired. "I'm the new man", he tells her. I bet!

Tom's dialogue is full of ambiguous lines like: "Do you want me to light the fire?" When Marilyn first sees him, he's standing under a sign that says "lubrication service." Blimey!

Rosie, a retarded lesbian seemingly besotted with Marilyn is, conversely, the only character who talks any sense. Not that Marilyn is the sort of girl to take advice. All she wants to do is escape - in any way she can.

Music takes her away. The night of her affair with Tom is almost the real end of the film. "We'll go on pretending."

Everything after this is just fantasy: killing her husband; Everton turning up on the scene (not the Walton white socks but Nicky Everton played by Ferdy Mayne) and converting ex hubby's old pull-in into the sort of American style diner so improbable that you half expect to see Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner sitting in the corner sipping pre-mixed cocktails. It's packed to the rafters every night and the cloth-capped lorry drivers have been replaced by jitterbugging couples. Where have all these people come from?

Order of Death (1983)

Panic in Narc Squad!

[10/10 · 10 November 2008]

A cop-killer stalks the city. Two corrupt cops, Lt. O'Connor and his colleague Bob (Harvey Keitel and Leonard Mann), share a secret apartment bought from confiscated drug money. O'Connor faces losing everything when Leo Smith (John Lydon) turns up at the apartment claiming to be the cop-killer.

Faithful adaptation of a remarkable book by Hugh Fleetwood. The book is mainly Lt. O'Connor's rant against the dangers of liberalism, opening with O'Connor buying his hated New York Times – hated because he considers the perceived liberal attitude of the paper to be compassionate with everything that is "weak, sick and degenerate" in society (he explains this theory to New York Times journalist – and wife of Bob – Lenore.) O'Connor defends his own corruption to Bob by stating that it is "the banning of drugs" that is corrupt. This isn't really expanded on in the film. In the book, O'Connor wants drugs legalised so that the aforementioned "weak, sick and degenerate" people will be willing slaves to their addictions and won't go out and "mug an old lady or kill an old man" to feed their illegal habit. The only place that Keitel can find the order he craves is in his strange, unfurnished apartment – witness his annoyance at Mann not tidying up. Keitel is utterly outraged when the deranged Leo Smith corrupts his secret refuge.

Lydon is perfectly cast, at least as regards his public image (to coin a phrase) – insidious, sickly and un-American looking, "strange kind of a guy." In the book, his character is even sicker; his initial appearance is particularly disquieting as he apparently eggs Keitel on to kill him as part of a weird quasi-sexual game. In reality, Lydon was really a decent chap – quitting the Sex Pistols because he refused to make a record with Ronnie Biggs (Lydon felt uncomfortable that Biggs had heisted working class money and coshed a railway employee for good measure); his morality contrasting sharply with the media's portrayal of him, at the time, as public enemy number 1. In reality, it was the British tabloid press, and particularly the Sun, who were out of step with decency – the Sun, a newspaper read by the working class, which appeared to hate working class people, being, in the 80s at least, a right wing and sporadically racist paper (it's hatred of its very readership culminated in its shocking coverage of the Hillsborough football disaster).

Of course, Lydon isn't an actor and he isn't quite as good as Keitel here. The mind games they enter into (once Keitel imprisons Lydon in the apartment) are pretty interesting stuff though – at turns sinister, camp and affecting – a real head to head battle of wills, reminiscent of Performance. (It's peculiarly touching to see a crying, whimpering Lydon at one point.) There's a few moody shots of early 80s New York but mainly the action takes place in the apartment – it's the focal point for the whole film. Here Smith acts out his obsession with the police. He's apparently read a book (written, O'Connor later finds out, by Bob's wife Lenore) which argues that the police are the real enemy of order, in that they inspire us to commit crimes so that we may be punished for them. (Lenore is played by the European Nicole Garcia, who's decidedly un-American views O'Connor finds flabbergasting.)

Also of note here is the soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. Recurring throughout is a country song based on a Tchaikovsky melody. O'Connor puts the song on his record player at the start of the film (it's an album but we never get to hear the rest of the songs) and its lyrics "It's been so long since I last felt this way" equate to scenes of O'Connor smoking expensive cigars and relaxing. We next hear the song when Bob tells him that he wants to quit the apartment ("You bought it so that you'd have something to feel guilty about"). After that, it's playing when O'Connor tortures Smith with a lit cigar – and so on. It's the same song but each time it's used with progressively more desperate images. What starts out as innocuous becomes more and more sinister – with O'Connor incapable of understanding what's happening to him before it's all too late.

The Boys (1962)

West Ham, innit

[7/10 · 3 September 2008]

Four young hooligans on the rampage apparently, scandalise intimidate and browbeat their way round the West End before brutally putting to death, with a knife, a night watchman in the course or furtherance of theft.

Courtroom drama in which we're shown the same events two different ways, first by the witnesses and then the defendants, so that we don't know whether we're seeing the truth or not. Both versions are similar but the subtle differences are enormous in terms of whether they're innocent or guilty. We're inclined to believe the defendants, at first, that all there is against them is a "farrago of circumstantial evidence", as defending council, Robert Morley puts it. It all actually turns out to be a rather large red herring though.

Kids carrying knives gives the film a bit of relevance for today. The boys' teddy boy clothes (actually rather smart) and music by the Shadows (mainly timpani drums) perhaps don't. The whole thing plods along for twenty minutes of events leading up to the crime: a bus to Surrey Docks with nervous conductor Roy Kinnear; a snack bar in a billiards hall; Alan Cuthbertson (who also pops up as a lawyer in Performance – and Twitchin in Fawlty Towers) as a motorist; Wilfrid Bramble (Steptoe) as a toilet attendant; and Colin Gordon, as Gordon Percy Lonsdale, waiting in a cinema cue to see Hungry For Love. Gordon was at the Ministry of Pensions for thirty two years and he's a widower. No wonder he's hungry for love.

This is all punctuated by prosecution council Richard Todd telling witnesses in the dock to "take your time - watch his lordship's pencil", and Montgomery (Morley) giving it lots of "I put it to you" in defence. The film comes to life when, "backstage", Morley explodes and starts kicking off on the defendants. "You spread your net of terrorism over half of London…"

"Leave him alone you fat, old…" replies Ronald Lacey (Harris in Porridge, Lacey also does a nice little turn in a Sweeney episode "Thou Shalt Not Kill") doing his daft, overgrown kid role. (His ambition is to own a big house in the country and have the Spurs playing on the football pitch "with only me watching, see.")

We're left to draw our own conclusion as to why Stan (Dudley Sutton) commits murder: if you carry a knife you're going to use it sooner or later; we're all just one step away from losing control; or maybe it's all down to ineffectual parenting – Stan's dad (Wensley Pithey) can't even be arséd to apply for a council flat while his wife is dying of cancer.

All in all this is a great snapshot of a forgotten era.

Cover Girl Killer (1959)

the hostess with the most on show

[19 August 2008]

A weirdo approaches the stage door of the Casbah Club, in 1950s Soho, and is transfixed by a portrait of Miss Gloria Starke (Bernadette Milnes, who pops up in the opening scene of Cover Story, a Sweeney episode, fifteen years later - if you're interested, like).

This is a film by Butchers Film Distributors (at least, I think it is – IMDb lists it as Jack Parsons Productions) and it's a film on a different level, theme wise, to almost every other second feature of its era. Cover Girl Killer is a film about a voyeur (in this most voyeuristic art form) who becomes a serial killer in order to "give man back his dignity, to free him from the prison of lustful images which foul his mind and pollute his sanity." The killer, played by Harry H Corbett, and billed only as The Man, feels imprisoned by society's values (which he finds morally abhorrent) and can only become "free" by killing girls who take off their clothes for Wow! Magazine. "I assure you, miss, your nudity means nothing to me", says Corbett, before dispatching one of them, Christina Gregg, who often popped up as the vulnerable type.

I've always had a problem with Corbett in a straight roll (Harry not Ronnie); his acting is just ludicrously mannered – really bad, oo I can act, look at me, amateur dramatics. Here, fortuitously, he's playing such an oddball that he's actually quite effective. Of course, the killer doesn't think he's doing anything wrong. "The borderline between what we call insanity and a hyper sensitive intellect is not always very clear, inspector", he tells Inspector Brunner (Victor Brooks), after turning up in his office, pretending to be Mr. Fairchild, property developer. Why he does this is not clear. Maybe, it's an ego thing and he wants to pit his wits against the police.

The most interesting scene is when the killer approaches Lennie Ross, (Theatre, Screen and TV agent, 3rd floor), for an actor to play the killer in the cover girl case. "Surely sex and horror are the new gods in this polluted world of so called entertainment?" (This line later featured in a UK number 1 smash for Frankie Goes To Hollywood, pop pickers.) Here, Cover Girl Killer really gets to the heart of the matter; reflecting on itself as we watch plans for a film version of the film we are actually watching.

Blackout (1950)

it's just like this when you're blind

[28 July 2008]

"At first it seemed just like every other day", says a voice-over that, bizarrely, sounds uncannily like Nicholas Ridley, 1980s Tory oligarch and NIMBY hater. But hold! Maxwell Reed, Mr Joan Collins no less, is strolling along outside a country house, white sticked (he's blind, like), trilby hatted and three piece suited - and this is a film, of course, not some political nightmare, that's why it's on IMDb.

"As I walked towards the lodge gates, I remember the feeling I got – a sort of tingling in the spine." Oh dear. This is dreadful. It's also hard at first to connect Reid's voice-over, for it is he, with his real time voice on screen and its quasi American tough guy quips. Still, Benny the gatekeeper is here to smooth things over. "Who's doing the op for you, sir?" (Reed is about to have his sight restored). "Dr. Langley" (Reed says this very strangely.) "Oh, you'll be alright with him." "Yeh, sure I will", replies Reed. "Look, I only asked", Benny might have replied.

Before the op though Max wants to party. So via a drive through some classic English countryside – and Big Ben by night – he is dropped, although not literally, in Kensington. Or is he? Here we have the main problem with "Blackout". Despite it being a great idea for a film - blind man "witnesses" a murder but doesn't know who the murderers are or who has been murdered or even where he is - cast and crew are unable to exploit its central idea. There are some nice touches – typical baddie Eric Pohlmann trimming his moustache in a mirror; Reed reflected double in the windows of corner shop; and the climax features Reed confronting Pohlmann after shooting out the houselights. The villain of the piece experiences the "blackout" that was Reed's previous misfortune.

There's also the usual time capsule quality to film's of this era – Dinah Sheridan, popping out to meet Reed, dressed in a fur coat; and buses trundling passed, advertising Drink A Mann's Beer.

Once Reed's sight is restored, he talks straight American. Is this an analogy for old world England emerging in the post war light and throwing off its class based chains – or is Reed just a bit rubbish?

Reminds me of a story my old mum used to tell about a male youth in early 50s Birkenhead who affected an American accent – because he thought it was cool. His father sent him to a psychiatrist.

Shoot to Kill (1960)

lost film

[4 July 2008]

According to its director, this film is lost.

Presumably it was never bought for television and so disappeared when Border Film Productions stopped making films sometime in the 70s.

Michael Winner (yes, that one) claimed on a recent BBC4 documentary that his second opus, a musical called "Climb Up The Wall", was also lost. Intriguingly, a review on this very site by one Sylvester (the cat?) claims "The Clock Strikes Eight" as Winner's second film. It's described as "a very routine murder mystery", but it's hard to tell whether he's actually seen it. Silly cat.

In "Truly Madly Cheaply: British B Movies", Matthew Sweet made the point that while a lot of British black and white B films are cráp (I agree) they offer perhaps a more realistic representation of Britain in the 50s/ early 60s than many big budget films did. In mentioning the important part these films played in our parent's and grandparent's cinema experience (a regular, fleapit experience rather than some rare multiplex treat) Sweet neglected to explore the impact these films had when shown as afternoon matinees in the 80s. Quite often, with the BBC showing the Test card, in the gap between "Pebble Mill" and "Jackanory" - and BBC2/ Channel 4 either broadcasting schools TV or nothing at all - these British B films were the only things on in the afternoon. Imagine that, kids! And what a bizarre contrast 50s Britain, with its pipe smoking police detectives and cut glass speech, formed with life in Thatcher's Britain – and more especially for single mums, the unemployed or school kids bunking off school, who had nothing better to do with their afternoons than watch these strange, black and white representations of a lost world.

Norman Conquest (1953)

sub Falcon tedium

[30 June 2008]

I bought this film because I'm interested in the British b film era of the 1950s and I didn't believe that I'd ever seen it before. The score by Philip Green (not the retail entrepreneur), and in particular a smug and highly irritating theme which recurs throughout the score, made me realise that I had seen it many years before. I wasn't able to recall a solitary frame of it however. Hardly surprising. Most of the clichés of the era are present: a suave, gentleman detective played by Tom Conway (George Sanders' brother, don't you know) in a particularly smug and irritating manner it has to be said (perhaps Philip Green's music wasn't that wide of the mark after all); sinister foreigners, unreal characters seemingly unshocked by violence and murder, toe curling behaviour from all and sundry. Based on the Norman Conquest (not that one) novels which were written by Berkeley Gray, Gray wrote over 800 of the blighters.

Bizarrely, its director, Bernard Knowles, directed Magical Mystery Tour for the Beatles fourteen years later. I am the walrus this ain't.

All in all Park Plaza 605 can be summarised as mediocre and lifeless rubbish from the golden age of the British second feature. Buy it now from Odeon Entertainment!

The Circle (1957)

ah, that's better

[6 June 2008]

This is the perfect comfort film (and I don't mean Lance Comfort). You've rung in sick, it's raining outside, you've got a big piece of buttered toast ready and then this comes on afternoon telly. Except it doesn't anymore; it's all Jeremy Kyle and his irksome ilk: "I married my lesbian dad."

Anyway, The Vicious Circle stars good old dependable Johnny Mills pants as a doctor caught up in a – erm – vicious circle. It's one of those innocent man gets tangled up in something nasty but he doesn't know who to believe and he ends up questioning his own sanity. Commonplace everyday events become loaded with meaning – or else take on a whole new meaning: a man, Lionel Jeffries, claiming to be a reporter, isn't a reporter and can't be traced; a disembodied voice on the telephone, claiming to be a film director friend, is an impersonator. In the most effective moment of the film Mills returns to his friend's flat (Derek Farr) to find a party in full swing – except it's only a gramophone record of party noise playing in an empty apartment. Oh and there's also a neurotic female patient who says she found a dead body with a candlestick next to it while strolling on the common (the police find the candlestick in Mills' golf clubs.) The building blocks of civilised society – trust and taking things at face value – become eroded and all we are left with is paranoia and fear. Not that you'd know it to look at Mills. It's a stiff upper lip and a nice round of golf all the way. It's how they did things back then, you know.

The problem the film has is that it asks us to trust Mills (would you trust a man who wears a cravat under his polo top?) and so we never doubt Mills' innocence. After the police reveal that they believe him too the suspense drains out of things and we're only left with the question of who's behind it all and why.

Tomorrow at Ten (1963)

the Golliwog Club

[26 March 2008]

A chap called Marlowe (Robert Shaw, Jaws fans) kidnaps a child of Hampstead parents by posing as the school-run chauffeur. After depositing the child in a deserted mansion, that resembles the one in Fallen Idol, he calmly turns up at the parent's house demanding 50 big ones. He's planning on catching the afternoon TWA to Rio see from where he'll book a long distance call to tell dad where his kid is hid. Now here's the clever bit. If he doesn't get his dough an explosive device hidden in a Golliwog will detonate tomorrow at ten – and he's given the Golliwog to the child for safekeeping.

I bought this DVD from Best of British series issued by Odeon. It's the sort of thing which used to pad out afternoon schedules in the distant days of 3 channel Britain. It's directed by Lance Comfort, who made films for RKO in the 40s and even directed James Mason once upon a time. Comfort, however, never really made a big film and subsequently became lost in the culturally reviled wasteland of second features – many for Butchers Film Service. In recent years there's been an attempt to re-evaluate Comfort's work. There's even been a monograph by Brian McFarlane and one of his films was compared to Resnais on this very website no less (Pit of Darkness).

This one is not quite typical of the second feature era. For a start it's a little bit later (1964) than that. Also there are a few moments that actually remove the film from the largely sealed world of the British B movie. There's even a cute reference to Z cars as Shaw whistles the theme tune while preparing the Golliwog bomb. Incidentally, I feel that an absence of any sort of popular culture from British B's of the 1957-63 era (new towns, West Indians, jeans, the teenage industry, etc) makes them strangely representative of their era. The fashion today for film makers to drench film soundtracks with the pop music of the film's era is not only a lazy way of establishing period flavour but to me rings false. Pop music may be all pervasive now for the ipod generation, if only superficially, but how many middle aged middle class people in the 50s/ 60s had any interest in pop culture beyond a vague awareness of Elvis and the Beatles maybe?

No matter, this film features John Gregson in the lead, as Inspector Parnell investigating the kidnapping, and two stars of the future in the aforementioned Shaw and Kenneth Cope (Cope pops up at the – Er – Golliwog Club – the way the girls are dancing here has to be seen to be believed – and interrogates Renee Houston – who later pops up as his battleaxe mum in Carry On At Your Convenience, trivia fans). Ironically it's Gregson as the established star who is a bit miscast here. He's called to play a maverick cop who goes against his superior, Bewley (Alan Wheatley). Unfortunately, Gregson is far too meek and mild of voice and manner to carry any conviction. The film is very much of its decade though when it pits working class cop Parnell against patrician, hunt ball brown noser Bewley, who simply wants to let Marlowe skip to Brazil with his loot. Unfortunately what could have been a rip roaring barney between the two – one man embodying the 1950s and the other the 1960s – has all potential drama rung out of it by the laborious manner in which Parnell explains that perhaps this wouldn't be such a great idea ("What the hell are you talking about?")

Better is the psychological stand off between Parnell and Marlowe as the Inspector tries to break Marlowe down with a seemingly innocuous line of questioning. We see a little glimpse of what a great character actor Shaw was to become; the authenticity of his behaviour and accent lifting the film momentarily out of the fusty B world into something more contemporary.

Lost in Translation (2003)

what is cinema?

[19 April 2007]

What is cinema? OK, you all know what it is. But what is it supposed to be? Escapism? Action? Acting? If you believe that cinema is those three things then you probably won't have time for "Lost In Translation". Despite it's "exotic" setting (Tokyo) it can hardly be described as escapist. The two main characters barely escape their hotel rooms. There's scarcely any action as nothing, apart from emotion, really happens. Oh and despite two totally convincing and believable "performances" the two main actors don't really act so much as behave.

So what is it? Well, the film certainly stayed with me for a long time after I'd seen it. What was I expecting? Traditionally a film has a camera, that you are not particularly aware of, focusing on two or more people who say their lines, their voices confronting the viewer. Things happen, the camera focuses on the action, on something. Here the camera focuses on Scarlett Johansson (Charlotte) as she sits, lies, reclines in her underwear in a hotel room, reading, looking out the window, thinking (thinking what?) She doesn't do anything. She's not presented sexily. She doesn't play up to the camera. She's not aware of the camera's presence. She's just another girl lazing round, bored perhaps, lost for something to do definitely; another girl albeit an exceptionally beautiful one, huge breasts and perfect – erm – rear imprisoned not by underwear so much as inertia. It's as if we, the viewer, are not passive, waiting to be lulled into our own inertia of "entertainment". There's no entertainment to be had here because we, the viewer, the camera, are active – actively watching Charlotte, gazing at her – stalking her. Charlotte lazes round her room. Charlotte gets on a train. Charlotte watches a Buddhist wedding. Blimey! And there's nothing to suggest that this is a film in any traditional sense, except perhaps for some occasional "alternative" music. A better choice might have included Abba's "The Day Before You Came", perhaps the ultimate "I'm being stalked but I don't know it" song. Actually, that would have been dreadful.

Although it's always great to hear some vintage Mary Chain is their "Just Like Honey", about a girl who is "moving up and so alive" with its yearning repeat of "for you", really suitable?

I don't want to dwell on the accusations of racism that have been levelled at this film. I think the portrayal of a foreign culture experienced through the eyes of two Americans, who don't want to stray very far, is fair enough. When Charlotte experiences traditional Japanese culture it's respectfully presented. You wouldn't have to go far to discover ludicrous and laughable Japanese attempts at pop Western culture, which are gleefully presented here. As it is, America doesn't come out of it too well either, witness vacuously confident (talentless) "hottie", Kelly (Anna Faris.)

So what is it about the film that remains in the mind of the viewer after it's finished? It's moving to me emotionally because the plight of real people are moving emotionally. But is this film more honest than traditional "it's a film" cinema? After all Charlotte and Bob (Bill Murray) aren't real. They're characters in a film. They even watch a film, La Dolce Vita. (Other films Sofia Coppola may have had in mind: Roman Holiday, Brief Encounter.)

What is "Lost In Translation" trying to say? That you can fall in love at any time, in any place? The two characters undoubtedly do fall in love. On their last night Charlotte wants Bob to stay but jokes about what they would do if he stayed - "form a jazz band". Bob wants to stay – and elongates his stay by accepting an invitation to appear on a naff TV show. He finds it harder and harder to leave as the moment of his departure draws near. What about his wife and kids? Does he feel he's too old for her? (another film, Charlie Chaplin in Limelight). Do they just feel like this because they are far from home and lonely? What exactly is being lost in translation?

To leave her is perhaps more faithful in love to her than to stay.

Their dilemma is touching because both characters are floored. She is self absorbed and possibly snobby. He cheats on his wife and his own career, having abandoned film acting for the quick buck of ludicrous (fake) commercials.

The conclusion subverts the chasing after someone who turns out not to be that someone cliché. It is her and their goodbye is moving because it looks so genuine. It isn't genuine though. It's two actors and it's a film. They're pretending. So maybe "Lost In Translation" belongs in one of the most traditional film genres after all. A love story.

The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre: Marriage of Convenience (1960) Season 1, Episode 4

another Edgar Wallace mystery

[10 April 2007]

Larry (John Cairney - a sort of lower league James Mason) is about to get married. Only problem is he's doing a 5 year stretch for armed robbery. Not that it really is a problem; the authorities have no intention of postponing his big day. How nice. Accompanied to the registry office by a couple of prison guards, dual blows to the solar plexus(es) are enough to see Larry on his toes – with the help, that is, of Barbara (Jennifer Daniel), a "showgirl without roots", and her handy Lambretta.

We (and they) then meet up with Sam (Russell Waters), a workman covered head to toe in the sort of grease and grime that was last seen on a Victorian chimney sweep. No matter, Larry nips round to where a "friend" (a secretary at the bank he blagged) is minding the loot - only to find that the bird has flown (married) and the new lady tenant is a bit of an old goer who's obviously up for a pounding – from Larry! Nothing doing, love, as Larry's blood pressure is about to rise for a different reason – his secretary's new hubby is none other than super sleuth, Mandall of Scotland Yard.

Larry, now well and truly on the trot and in pursuit of his money, is being tracked by Detective Inspector Jock Bruce, played by Harry H Corbett - possibly the most unintentionally dreadful actor of all time. He tries so hard though, bless. His portrayal of Bruce is firmly of the stock character policeman variety. Jock Bruce is a boy from the provinces, with perhaps a chip on his shoulder. The vague provinces tag allows Harry's accent to careen uncomfortably all the way up the North East (though curiously not Scotland) via Lancashire.

Set in that forgotten period of 1960-63, where the 50s had ended but the 60s hadn't really begun (that was with the first Beatles LP, culture fans - might have been interesting when Larkin originally said it) "Marriage of Convenience" features pipe smoking police, boxy motor cars going clang clang and a gaggle of pre Twiggy big hipped dancers moving round inertly, corralled by a chap at a piano shouting stuff like: "It's all ragged. Come on, girls!"

Director Clive Donner went on to direct Swinging London fair like "Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush" but this film only equates to another unremarkable entry in the Edgar Wallace series.

The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre: Partners in Crime (1961) Season 1, Episode 7

Cool Kups

[28 March 2007]

Big houses gently lit on an affluent suburban avenue. Rolls Royce pulls up, well-heeled types alight: a silver cigarette case chap in a tuxedo (John Van Eyssen), a Charles Lawton where there's muck there's brass cigar chomper (Victor Platt), and his permanent wave fox fur lady wife (Moira Redmond, who later popped up in an episode of The Sweeney, Sweeney fans). Once inside, cigar man's wife retires and Harry (that's Victor Platt) typically heads off to his study. But what's this? The old boy's safe has been riffled and, what's more, there's someone at the French windows pointing a pistol at Harry's grid. He fires! Harry falls shot to the floor and dead.

Thus begins another Edgar Wallace Mystery – a film, in its country of origin, and not a TV episode, as stated here, albeit somewhat short for a feature. Wallace was writing in the 1910s and 20s and this is based on one of his novels. Which one I'm not sure (research!) The film adaptation considerably updates things though to reflect contemporary worries about the new decade, the 60s. Hence Harry's killer is dismissed by police as "a young thug with a gun in his pocket."

"The new regime", mutters dependable old Bernard Lee (yes, that one, M fans), seen here as Inspector Mann of Scotland Yard.

There's also an Aussie (Gordon Boyd) who kills for money (they're descended from criminals, you see) and a couple of motorbike kids who rob from lorries parked up by the Castle Café, a pull in. One of these, Larry Martyn, a sort of Sam Kydd of the 70s and 80s if you like, enjoyed/ endured his only major roll in Are You Being Served? playing Mr Mash. His accident prone turn in an oft repeated public information film of the 70s made him a familiar face.

Inspector Mann reserves particular contempt for the murdered man's fizzy pop product, Cool Kups – the drink that makes you sparkle/ tingle/ the drink that's good for you. Try it today! and has a look of Don't tell me what to do lady as he listens to one of their advertising jingles.

All in all this is an unremarkable entry to this series of films and the fireball conclusion in a scrap yard of old cars fails to raise things above the routine.

Urge to Kill (1960)

Hughie!

[8 March 2007]

The Edgar Wallace Mysteries were a 46 film series made by Merton Park Productions. They concluded in 1965, with "Dead Man's Chest", and began here with "Urge to Kill" five years earlier.

Or did they?

"Urge To Kill" lacks the revolving bust opening titles of the Edgar Wallace series. Also, it isn't based on anything that Wallace wrote. Despite it being listed on IMDb as the first film of the series, it was probably only retitled as "Edgar Wallace Mysteries: Urge To Kill" for the USA and wasn't part of the series at all.

No matter. A lunatic is running amok in what looks like a particularly grim small town. No green hills in these parts, as someone remarks – even though I watched a green tinted version of this film, which makes everyone look a bit sicklier than they no doubt were. There's a small town mentally to many of the villagers, or towners, in the shape of some large talk down The Anchor (that's a pub) of mobbing up and sorting out Hughie (Terence Knapp), the educationally subnormal young man (or "mental case" as the Police refer to him – charming!) who lives with his Auntie, Auntie B (Ruth Denning) the landlady of a modest boarding house. Huey likes roaming round by the docks and derelict sites to find "pretty bits like flowers" – pieces of old broken bottles and such. Some local Judy will be bumped off and Huey will arrive home soaking wet or covered in mud. Other suspects emerge in the form of Auntie B's boarders: kindly (or is that cowardly?) Mr Forsythe (Wilfrid Brambell, yes, that one) who has a habit of quoting the Bible - and Charlie Ramskill (now there's a clue) played by Howard Pays as an unctuous sales rep who's outward confidence masks an alarming inadequacy with the ladies. Oh and there's Mrs Willis (Anna Turner) who likes to pop in with her glad tidings. Mrs Willis sounds like one of those TS Eliot women from the Wasteland: "Have you seen the paper? Have you seen it? It's Jenny. You know: Curly's daughter. Got herself done in. Strangulated. Here! See for yourself! Murdered and gashed! Gave me quite a turn. I wouldn't say no to a cup of tea."

It all adds up to something less than a mystery as it's pretty quickly revealed who the real madman is.

Unusual for the era for the way it places a – erm - murdering lunatic in an everyday setting - rather than the Grand Guignol mannered style of horror films – "Urge To Kill" came bang in the middle of Merton Park's heyday when they chugged along at the rate of one feature per month - before tailing off into TV production by the late 60s.

"Urge To Kill" runs contrary to the usual second features of the time, Butchers' productions of feeble glamour in London apartments/ nightspots for example, and outwardly has more in common with early Coronation Street. Merton Park Productions, who had their studios opposite – erm – Merton Park in London, were notorious for using locations in and around SW19 in order to keep their production costs down. This one is all quite studio bound; most of it set round the kitchen table. The writers presumably imagined that they were creating quirky, eccentric characters but very little about "Urge To Kill" rises above its mundane setting.