DVD review by Ann Snuggs

The second set of Kit Parker Films featuring Hammer noir of the 1950s contains four disks – volumes four through seven – with eight films: Terror Street, Wings of Danger, The Glass Tomb, Paid to Kill, The Black Glove, The Deadly Game, The Unholy Four and an “exclusive bonus: action drama,” A Race for Life.

Most of these will not satisfy noir purists, who demand certain plot and character elements for the genre. It is an irritant to noir purists that any dark – especially black and white – crime drama is often given the classification “noir,” despite the lack of noir elements. Nevertheless, dark crime dramas usually entertain the same group of fans and most of the films in this set are highly entertaining. It’s a definite “check it out” package for fans of noir and crime drama.

Volume 4 holds Terror Street and Wings of Danger, neither of which qualifies as true film noir. Having pointed that out, it’s nice to be able to say both films are good B-level suspence.

Terror Street stars Dan Duryea as Major Bill Rogers, an American pilot who met a Norwegian woman, Katie (Elsy Albiin) in London during World War II. They fell in love, married and settled in London. He was sent to the U.S. for training and suddenly she quit answering his letters. Now he has convinced a friend to smuggle him back into England while he is on a weekend leave in order to find out what happened to his wife. 

The trail leads him to her new flat, where he makes himself at home to wait for her. She arrives, they exclaim greetings and a man steps out of another room, knocks Bill out and shoots Katie. He wipes his prints from the gun, places it in Bill’s hand and calls the police.

It’s up to Bill to avoid the authorities and find the murderer of his wife. It does help that officially he is in the United States so that the police think he is not in the country, but he only has 36 hours (the British title of the film) to solve the crime and get back to the landing field to catch his unofficial flight back to the U.S. If he fails, he will be AWOL and the prime suspect in the killing.

Along the way he enlists the aid of a pretty mission worker, Jenny Miller (Ann Gudrun) and runs into a whole nest of smugglers, including the slick Orville Hart (John Chandros).

The picture is a bit sentimental for it’s type, with a long, almost maudlin, set-up showing Bill and Katie’s romance, but once it gets moving, it’s satisfying crime drama. Fans of Dan Duryea will enjoy his prominence and he delivers a solid performance.

Wings of Danger is the better of the two films on the disk, though once again, not noir. We have to get to the climax of the story to even get to a killing. No noir without murder – or at least someone setting up a murder. Sorry.

However, Wings is a good, involving story, one more time smugglers are the bad guys. The hero of this tale, Richard Van Ness (Zachary Scott), is also a pilot, a pilot with a secret – he blacks out.

His buddy Nick Talbot (Robert Beatty) insists on flying even though Van tries to stop him – ugly weather out there. Nick never reaches his destination and, though wreckage is found, Van isn’t convinced that it was an accident.

Nick’s lovely sister Avril (Naomi Chance) is in love with Van but Van won’t marry her because of his blackouts. What he will do is investigate the “accident” and try to give closure to Avril and her father, who adored his son Nick.

There’s plenty of blackmail and intrigue as Van begins to suspect Nick was involved in a smuggling operation and was killed by his associates. The twists don’t end there.

There will be no spoilers in this review but Wings of Danger is well-worth watching to see how it all unravels, despite some really high corn that grows in the last few scenes.

Check it out and enjoy!

“First time on video.” That’s the way the films of volume 5 are billed.

The Glass Tomb is up first. It catches a lot of flack from some viewers because of the setting and the category of the characters. They’re tent show people – as in a tattooed woman, a midget, a fire-eater and a starving man. Yes, a starving man. It is a little strange to think that anyone might find it entertaining to watch a man live in a glass cage and not eat for days or weeks but it is highly doubtful that a screenwriter dreamed up this concept. Someone, somewhere, sometime probably did something like that and people paid to see it. Of course, today they watch “reality” shows about swapping wives and people surviving hostile environments so maybe it’s not that far-fetched.

Pel Pelham (John Ireland) is a promoter. His latest hype is a “starving” man. The man, Sapolio (Eric Pohlmann) eats like a horse and looks well-fed by his loving wife but his “specialty act” is fasting in public. He’s been all over Europe, going 60 days without food in one city, 65 in another. Now Pel proclaims he will fast for 70 days in London, “sealed” in a glass cage. It’s so “cool” that Pelham’s young son wants to know why he can’t be “starving,” too.

Pel’s wife Jenny (lovely, young Honor Blackman) has everything in charge at the house. What she doesn’t have is much of a role. In fact, she has such little visibility for second billing – and the film is so short, just more than an hour – that one believes a big chunk of her screen time ended up on the cutting room floor.

Pel’s buddy, Tony Lewis (Sid James in another role for Hammer), bankrolls the set-up and tells Pel he needs some help. A girl is trying to blackmail him. Pel notes the girl’s address and says he has a friend who lives in the same building. He will drop by and talk to the girl.

To his surprise, the girl is an old friend, daughter of the man who started his show biz career. She admits the blackmail was a scam and tells Pel that Tony can forget the letter, which she tears in half and tosses aside carelessly. Pel invites her to a party that night because his friend in the building is none other than Sapolio, who is having a party to celebrate his next “booking,” the glass cage. All their show people friends will be there.

Pel goes downstairs where Sapolio’s wife (Nora Gordon) is working to make the party special. When she sends Sapolio out for more olives, he sees the shadowy figure of a man entering the apartment upstairs.

The party commences and here is where a lot of viewers get hung up in the trappings, forgetting that this is a mystery rather than a carnival show. So many viewer comments focus totally on the characters, including the starving man, and miss out completely on the intrigue.

The partiers are surprised when an uninvited guest drops in to join the celebration. Good old Harry Stanton (Geoffrey Keen), “Uncle Harry” the show folks call him, appears at the door.

The midget piano player goes upstairs to the facilities – these are cheap flats and tenants must share – and comes back in a frenzy. A murdered girl is up there.

Even if they didn’t all know her, everyone knows her father, and a pall falls over the party. The police arrive, led by Lindley (durable, reliable Liam Redmond).

While the murderer is fairly obvious to seasoned crime drama or noir fans, it’s fun to watch the tale unfold. In fact, it was so much fun that this reviewer immediately re-watched it with the commentary track running.

The best thing about this one (for me) was the cast. John Ireland was so underappreciated through his career. Honor Blackman was so young in this one. Sidney (Sid) Lewis was always terrific. Liam Redmond is never less than a joy to watch.

Don’t let the trappings get in the way. View The Glass Tomb as crime drama rather than a story about side-show performers and settle in for an enjoyable watch.

Paid to Kill is more noir-ish. It’s Dane Clark as James (Jim) Nevill, a sharpie who has worked his way up to the presidency of a corporation and the husband of a beautiful society wife, Andrea (Thea Gregory).

When the big deal – privately made without the scrutiny of the board – that will make or break him falls through, he becomes desperate to save his beautiful, wonderful Andrea from any scandal or lowering of standards and goes to an old friend, one he saved from a murder charge, for help.

Paul Kirby (Paul Carpenter) is defensive when he arrives at Jim’s study at the Nevills. He knows he owes Jim. He’ll get him paid back. Jim says, oh, yes, but he has a plan to forgive the debt and make Paul 1000 pounds (we’re in Britain) richer. It will be simple. All he has to do is kill his old buddy Jim.

Paul is horrified. He refuses and leaves in an agitated huff. Andrea sees Paul’s condition and insists that her friend Peter Glanville (Anthony Forwood) see Paul home.

Paul goes not home but to the dive where his girl works and pours the story out to her with Glanville listening in. No amount of cajoling will move Kirby. Glanville abandons him draped over the counter.

Jim is waiting for Paul when he gets home and blackmails him with evidence of the long-ago killing. By the time Jim leaves he is confident that Paul will follow through.

Move forward to the date Jim has promised the board an update. Just as Jim is getting ready to break the news of the disaster to the board, the other party to the collapsed deal burst into his office with good news. The deal is back on and Jim is saved. Or is he?

Paul has disappeared. Someone is blatantly trying to kill Jim. His devoted secretary, Joan (Cecile Chevreau), uses all her skills to try to help him but Paul cannot be found and the murder attempts continue.

The solution should be obvious to the noir fan by now but it isn’t to Jim. Tune in to see how it all works out. Though not the best of this series, Paid to Kill, is entertaining despite a rather mawkish ending.

Volume 6 kicks off with The Black Glove and one of the biggest mysteries is the title. Face the Music was the novel and the title in Britain. That made a little more sense but someone should have put a more thought into naming this entertaining film. It’s charming. Okay, charming is not exactly an apt term for murder and mayhem but this film does charm the viewer.

James “Brad” Bradley (Alex Nicol) doesn’t just play the trumpet, he’s the hottest thing around. He’s been touring the U.S. and is a smash on opening night in Britain. His manager, Maxie Margulies (John Salew), has a big opening night party planned, but Brad begs off. Heavy tour schedule abroad, long flights, opening night, he needs some rest.

That’s not what fate has in store for him. The traffic is so bad that his taxi takes a side street and is stalled at the door of a jazz club. Brad hears that sweet canary singing inside and leaves the unmoving taxi to check out the source of that voice. It’s lovely and talented Maxine Halbard (Ann Hanslip).

He’s famous. She knows him. He is enchanted.

He offers to buy her late dinner. She takes him home to cook for him. Everything about her fascinates him so much that when he leaves – with a date for tomorrow night but no goodnight kiss – he leaves his trumpet behind.

The next morning he is awakened early and rudely by the police. Maxine is dead – obviously murdered – and his trumpet was in her flat. He is shocked and hurt. He just met her and now he will never get to know her.

It’s too much for any red-blooded all-American boy. He must find the murderer and see that he pays.

The trail leads him to star and not-so-star piano players, Maxine’s sister Barbara Quigley (versatile Eleanor Summerfield) – who may have been a singer but always played second fiddle to her sister – record producers, and former performers.

We later learn that the police have given him a free hand hoping he will shake things loose in a world often hostile to authorities, and he does – so much that he almost ends up a fatality himself.

Though not really classic noir, The Black Glove is one of the better films in this set. Highly entertaining.

It’s tough on The Deadly Game to have to follow The Black Glove for it is a definitely the lesser of the two films in Volume 6.

Philip Graham (Lloyd Bridges) is vacationing in Spain. As he is checking into his hostelry he meets an old friend from the war (World War II), Tony Roscoe (Peter Dyneley), who gets him a better room and introduces him to some friends – Mr. Darius (Finlay Currie), his niece Marina (Maureen Swanson) and Darius’ “fiancée” Mitzi Molnaur (Simone Silva).

Roscoe receives a phone call and tells Graham he must leave for London immediately but he will pay the expenses if Graham will drive his car back to London. Sounds fine to Graham. This is good old Tony from his unit.

The complications begin right there. Tony has left an envelope in the hotel safe. By means of a contrived situation, the safe can’t be opened before his flight time. Tony becomes extremely upset but Graham says he can just bring the envelope with the car.

After taking Roscoe to the airport, Graham is run off the road and attacked. He is driving his buddy’s car, which should clue him in. Not a chance. Just a coincidence, or so he thinks. Darius insists that the incident be reported to the police and Detective Gonzales (Roger Delgado) comes to take his statement.

Marina, who has discovered a multitude of common interests with Philip, is sorry to see him go but they agree to meet in London.

The British title for this film was Third Party Risk and by trusting a man he hasn’t seen in years, Graham is indeed at risk. His buddy was up to his ears in intrigue and Philip must use his wits to stay alive and unmask the villains in a trail that leads from London back to Spain and his acquaintance, Detective Gonzales.

Mildly intriguing, The Deadly Game might best be watched first. The position of the protagonist in The Black Glove is much the same (man accidentally caught up in death and intrigue) and The Black Glove just does it better. The Deadly Game suffers by comparison.

If the title of The Black Glove is puzzling, how The Unholy Four was chosen as a title boggles the mind. It would be nice to know which four in the film were the unholy ones, as there are definitely more than four choices.

Four buddies, Philip “Vick” Vickers (William Sylvester), Job Crandall (Patrick Holt), Bill Saul (Paul Carpenter) and Harry Brice (in this film in name only) were on a fishing trip off Portugal. (Are they the “unholy” ones?) While on shore on night, Vickers was attacked and killed. Or was he?

The film opens with the return of Philip, believed dead these four years. He walks into his estate to be greeted by his dog, with affection, and his wife’s social secretary Joan Merrill (Alvys Maben), with hostility.

Joan tells him his wife Angie (Paulette Goddard) and friends are at the cottage  at a party. When he goes to the garage, he finds Harry’s car there. He chooses that vehicle to drive to the cottage.

Reactions to his appearance are all manner of shocked, except for good old Harry. No one knows what happened to Harry until his body floats up by the boathouse the next morning.

Angie was seen at the boathouse, as she floated away for a late night cruise, but the police suspect Philip. He’s the one returning – perhaps for revenge – after an absence of four years.

 Inspector Treherne (Russell Napier) has his work cut out for him. The inspector, a very likeable character, has a more prominent presence than police often do in many films of this genre. Vick is the chief protagonist but the inspector runs a close second.

Philip sends Joan and all the servants away, keeping Angie a prisoner – or so it appears – in her own house.

Sessions (David King Wood), the accountant, has been trying to blackmail Job about some questionable financial transactions. Now that Vick has returned Sessions tries to put more pressure on his target and Job punches him. Sessions falls to the floor, hits his head and dies. Job flees to the house to tell Angie that he saw her with Harry at the boathouse and he will take the rap since a man can only die once.

Vick scratches him off as his possible assailant in Portugal. But is he right?

Accusation and false confessions abound and this film holds suspense well. It’s a good tale – well-worth one time around and maybe for a few repeat viewings.

The last film in this set, A Race for Life, is billed an “exclusive bonus: action drama.” It’s probably exclusive because no other company wanted it. Auto racing fans might find some interesting moments for “racing greats” Stirling Moss, Reg Parnell, John Cooper, Alan Brown, Geoffrey Taylor and Leslie Marr are credited as being in the film, though one has to know their faces to spot them.

Poor Richard Conte. He deserved much better. He plays Peter Wells, once a top driver who hasn’t won in two years. The manager of his team, Tony Bellario (Peter Illing) is losing faith in him. His wife Patricia (Mari Aldon) wants him to quit before he kills himself. His buddy “Pic” Dallapiccola (George Coulouris) thinks it may be time for him to retire.

Pic tries to soften the blow with a cock-and-bull story about quitting the circuit at the end of the season because he is getting married and marriage and racing don’t mix. When Pic suggests that Peter do the same they have an argument. Pic parts by wishing Peter good luck but Peter is steamed and refused to reciprocate.

When Pic crashes, Peter leaves the race to rush to the hospital and make peace with Pic before he dies. Tony is furious and gives Guido Rosetti (Alec Mango) Peter’s car for the next race – if he even decides to keep Peter on the team.

Upon learning that Peter does not plan to quit, even after Pic’s death, Patricia leaves him. Tony tells him he’s cutting him from the team. Poor Peter has hit bottom. Then Tony takes him back but still gives Guido the best car, the one Peter drove.

The final race is sad. Obviously all the close ups of the principals are shot in front of a green screen – or in that day, a scrim. Guido ruins the good car and has to leave the race. Peter’s lesser car leaks oil until he and the car are covered with it.          Does he win? Will his wife take him back? Do we care? Not really. This weak entry doesn’t belong in this set. Watch it only if a confirmed auto racing fan – and maybe not even then.

Ann Snuggs is an award-winning columnist, film historian and freelance writer. And she wants to keep the smoke coming out of the chimney.

DVD review by Ann Snuggs

No, not Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, but some of the most intriguing films of British B-noir of the 50s fill this set of three double feature DVDs. This first Collector’s Set of Hammer Film Noir Double Features includes volumes one, two and three of the series from Kit Parker Films distributed by VCI Entertainment. Disk one celebrates – or should I say, exploits – two beautiful – but dangerous – blondes with Bad Blonde and Man Bait.

Bad Blonde stars a real life bad blonde, Barbara Payton, who, according to film noir commentator Richard M. Roberts, spent more time on the cover of the early scandal magazines, such as Hollywood Confidential, than on the screen. That’s sad, because she made a perfect femme fatale in front of the camera. Handsome Brit Tony Wright as Johnny Flanagan makes a perfect foil for her in this one.

Payton plays Lorna, a former taxi dancer – you know, a dime a dance girl – who snagged a wealthy Italian husband, Giuseppe Vecchi (Frederick Valk). He made some of his money managing boxers so when his old buddies, Sharkey (ever-so-good Sidney James) and Charlie (John Slater), bring in their new young find – who happens to be also a blond and hunky to boot – Giuseppe comes out of retirement and the writing is on the wall.

The viewer does have to admit that Giuseppe contributes to his own downfall, insisting that they all be one big, happy family and practically shoving his mercenary young wife into Johnny’s arms, but she didn’t need much help. Once she gets a mental picture of trading in her older, paunchy husband on a newer, more attractive model, nothing will stand in her way.

 The story is clichéd but the treatment – not to mention the supporting cast – makes this bad blonde very good to watch.

Man Bait was the title for the U.S., focusing on the lovely young Diana Dors, who is neither the female lead nor the evil manipulator of the film. The British title, The Last Page, while not exciting nor the type of promise to pull in an audience in the U.S., is much more appropriate. This noir, with an evil male rather than female manipulator, is set in a book store. How prosaic!

Nevertheless, it works fairly well.

John Harman (George Brent) manages a book shop. Ruby Bruce (Diana Dors) is one of the employees, chiefly noticeable because she is habitually late to work. Contrary to the hype promoting this film, he is not uncontrollably drawn to her for an affair, nor does she kiss him while working late with the idea of blackmail. Anyway, one kiss does not an affair make. No matter what the synopses may try to tell you, that isn’t the way it was. Not one blurb I read before seeing the film, presented what I felt was an accurate rendition of the story.

That said, it doesn’t matter. The fact that Ruby is one of the manipulated not the manipulator doesn’t make the film any better or any worse. It’s nice, standard, second-on-bill, B-noir. It doesn’t stand out as the best of its class nor send the viewer whimpering away in agony.

Lovely Marguerite Chapman as Stella Tracy is the real female lead and thus the one in final jeopardy as the tale winds down. She deserved better billing than she got.

Poor Man Bait. For all the busty, blonde come-ons, it still deserves second billing on this disk.

Volume 2 of the Hammer double feature releases holds A Stolen Face with Lizabeth Scott and Paul Henreid and Blackout with Dane Clark and Belinda Lee.

The premise of A Stolen Face is intriguing but the story as it unfolds is totally predictable. The leads are quite watchable. Scott was lovely and a solid performer. Henreid delivers a nicely defined character but he is awfully sentimental for noir.

Philip Ritter (Henreid) is a doctor, a cosmetic surgeon, who works himself to the point of exhaustion – caring for patients who will pay when they can, volunteering his services at a prison to help those whose physical deformities encouraged a life of crime, and turning down high fees from the rich whose desire for surgery is a vain whim.

When he almost kills himself and his partner by falling asleep at the wheel, his associate sends him on a vacation. Forced to stop by a driving rain storm, he finds lodging in a small inn. His neighbor in the next room is suffering from a very noisy cold and, being a good-hearted doctor, he offers medical advice via a note slipped under the door.

Imagine his surprise when the noisy neighbor turns out to be a beautiful blonde concert pianist, Alice Brent (Scott). They remain at the inn for a week in the country and a whirlwind romance. He has fallen deeply in love (he does wear his heart on his sleeve!) but she intended this to be temporary, as she was already committed to another man.

They part. She begins a concert tour of Europe and he half-heartedly returns to his practice.

While Ritter is moping around his lab, his partner reminds him of the promise he made to a young woman at the prison, Lily Conover (Mary Mackenzie), a girl horribly scarred during the World War II Blitz. He promised her a new face.

If what happens next isn’t becoming obvious, the viewer just isn’t into these dark movies. The good and very soft-hearted – soft-headed? – doctor not only gives her the face of his lost love, the pianist, he marries the young criminal, convinced that with his love’s face she will take on his love’s persona.

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! It’s a once-a-criminal, always-a-criminal tale.

Alice returns from her tour unmarried because she couldn’t marry another when she loved Phillip only to discover a new Mrs. Ritter with her face. (Scott now in a duel role.)

No spoilers here but the ending was wrong for pure, classic noir. It probably satisfied studio bosses and some audiences but noir purists will find a major flaw.

Blackout , one of Dane Clark’s excursions to England for the Lippert/Hammer alliance, is more riveting. It gets top billing for this disk, despite the fact that Clark is a little too boyishly charming physically to fit the image of the brooding noir protagonist. Even when he’s brooding, his features project more of a boyish pout than that of a jaded loner or loser.

Certain scenes from Blackout have an absolute perky feeling about them. His “yes, dears,” even in sarcasm bring a giggle. Despite that, this film has more twists and turns than a switchback, mountain road. It becomes a whose-truth-is-the-truth story that pitches a new curve up till the end.

Casey Morrow (Clark) is a down and out drunk when he is picked up by a mysterious and, of course, beautiful young woman (Belinda Lee) who offers him 500 pounds to do a job for her. Before he passes out he hears her say the job is to marry her.

The next morning he wakes up in a strange flat, sees a portrait of his new “wife” across the room and is greeted by Maggie Doone (Eleanor Summerfield), a woman he has never seen before. She has washed the blood off his coat and says she took him in because he fell – almost literally – into her door in the middle of the night in the pouring rain.

He soon discovers his missing “bride” is an heiress, Phyllis Brunner, whose father’s murder is on the front page and who moved in with Maggie to hide from her fiancé a while back. Phyllis re-appears, claims Casey as her husband and promptly says if he doesn’t help her find her father’s murderer she’ll tell the police he murdered her father and kidnapped her. It gets even more convoluted from there.

Flawed, cheaply made like this entire set of films, Blackout can still hold its own with any B-noir on the market. It holds interest and has the wicked manipulator element so necessary for the genre. Summerfield is spot on as the helpful friend of both Casey and Phyllis. She is so appealing that the viewer sort of hopes the story will twist around and let her live happily-ever-after with Casey. Oh, well, this is noir. Unlike many films described as noir, Blackout actually qualifies.

The third disk of this set contains The Gambler and the Lady and Heat Wave.

The Gambler and the Lady features Dane Clark again, but he made a bad bet on this one. Lame. And we’re not talking about the crippled newsie on the corner. Remember that whimper we didn’t make earlier?

The story is more crime than noir. The moral edge, or even a semblance of it, is missing. The characters are more stupid than evil and it’s just plain irritating in places – not to mention you can get a headache from all the times you roll your eyes in exasperation. Jim Forster (Clark) runs gambling parlors in England. He fled the U.S. after doing time for manslaughter and wants to become a “gentleman” and escape his past. His butler and his manservant are old buddies and he treats them as such. They caution him that he’ll never make it in society but he just won’t listen.

Nor does he listen when Italian – ooh, can we get some stereotypes here? – mobsters move in and want to take over his operations. At the stables where he rides – like the wealthy folk do – he meets Lord Peter Willens (Anthony Forwood ). He’s titled but broke. Later, the lord and his friends have a party at Forster’s club and Peter introduces the gambler to his sister, Lady Susan (Naomi Chance). The sister falls for him – for real! – but the brother sees him only as a source of money.

I make it a point not to tell endings but I will say nobody wins in this one – including the audience. The whole film is a losing hand. The other film on this disk, Heat Wave, compensates to a great degree for the lost pot of the first one. Not brilliantly original – the pattern for the genre only allows for so much variation – Heat Wave does have a neat little sizzle to it.

It’s a narrative piece, told with voiceovers by novel writer Mark Kendrick (Alex Nicol) who had the bad fortune to rent a cabin retreat across the lake from the lovely Carol Forrest (Hillary Brooke). Style-wise, it had me from the get-go.

Kendrick is working one evening when a strange woman calls to ask if he is the one with the launch across the lake. She and her husband Beverly (Yes, that’s a male name, once not terribly uncommon, especially in England.) are having a party. Their launch isn’t running and friends need a lift to their dock. Well, there goes his quiet life.

Carol invites Mark up for a drink since he helped them out and, though he doesn’t especially like her yet, he’s hooked. Still, at this point, one drink and he is out of there. At the dock Mark discovers he is out of gas and gets some from the man who is working on the Forrests’ launch, who just turns out to be Bev Forrest (Sidney James), his host.

Bev invites him to come have a real drink – bourbon, not Scotch – with him and they play billiards until dawn. This is James’ second appearance in this set and once again he is a joy to watch. Not a familiar face to a lot of U.S. fans, Sidney James was a prolific character actor in Britain after World War II. His appearance in one of these films drives the quality up a notch. He delivers exactly what is needed in his role – big or small – to move the story and involve the viewer. Heat Wave is no exception. It’s a shame he died so young.

Carol is having an affair with a pianist, Vincent Gordon (Paul Carpenter) – flagrantly, right under her husband’s nose. He knows it but is so in love with her that he puts up with it. After all, Vincent is not her first affair.

He’s not the last in this film either because soon, no matter how good his intentions nor how much he likes her husband, Mark is caught by her spell.

Tell us the story one more time. Beautiful, unfaithful wife. Weak man, unable to resist her advances. Wealthy husband who is all that “stands between us and happiness forever.”

It’s kind of sad how many dumb men populate the annals of film noir. Kendrick is but yet another one, yet this telling is highly entertaining.

Nicol’s physical presence was a good fit for the genre. His writer on the skids is convincing. We believe him. Brooke doesn’t make a false step as the calculating Carol. Okay, it’s not a big budget, top writer, cast of stars noir, but it is good. It’s solid and it is true noir.

Heat Wave , the last entry in this set, just may be the best of the bunch. One of the most appealing assets of the packages put out by Kit Parker Films and distributed by VCI is the block of extras.

This set includes selected bios for each film and some commentary about Hammer noir in general as well as comments about the individual films. It should be noted that the commentaries are separate featurettes, not voiceover tracks added to the films as they run.

Especially, in these times, bottom line cost has to be a consideration but someone at Kit Parker Films loves these oldies and it shows.

Ann Snuggs is an award-winning columnist, film historian and freelance writer. And she’s back from the dead.

over that one.

I mean, the filmmaking is

So after a fair amount of berating from some film snob friends, I decided to familiarize myself with Fellini. So far I’ve struggled through La Dolce Vita and Amarcord, and I’m not impressed. I’ve still got Juliet of the Spirits waiting on the coffee table, but Northern Exposure Season 5 just keeps winning out artful. I can appreciate the films on that level, but so far the movies overall just bore me. I just don’t see what all the fuss is about.

Northern Exposure, tho — what a great show, yeah? It’s innovative by today’s standards when it comes to the storytelling. Entire episodes revolve around visions and dreams, Shaminism is taken seriously, characters deal with complex philosophical questions. And this show was made in the early 90s.

I’ve noticed the stories often have some kind of parallel. In one episode, two regular characters have unrelated indentity crises: One because an old girlfriend can’t tell the difference between him and his brother, um, sexually, and the other because the character feels he’s lost his NY edge and acclimated to small town living. In another episode, three characters deal with situations in which literal and metaphorical children return to the nest. Good Stuff.

On the other side of the TV on DVD spectrum, there’s a recent BBC botching of Robin Hood. I gave the first season a shot last year and was disappointed. I mean, Robin’s hood is a damn hoodie. A Crusades-era hoodie. Putting lacing on the front does not make it acceptably medieval.

The first season lacks a sense of continuity. In one episode, Robin and his gang get into trouble, then narrowly escape and share a laugh at the end before the credits roll. The next episode, this repeats. It’s a silly show and it’s repetative. Somehow, i got duped into giving season 2 a try.

The second season gains a bit of a continuing story line, as the sheriff devises various plots to kill the king. At the end, the sheriff just says, “fuck it,” and goes to the holy land to find the king himself and take care of business. Robin and the gang follow, there’s a fight at the end, and the king thanks Robin for saving his butt and sends him home. “I know my country’s turned to complete shit in my absence and my brother’s a tyrrant, but there’s a war on. Bye!”

Needless to say, I’m not even going to bother with season 3.

i’m nerding out, waiting for wearethefallen to go live. am i skeptical about ben moody teaming up with yet another idol? yeah. but i’ll sure as hell give him a shot.