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| Lady in the Fog (a/k/a Scotland Yard Inspector) (1952) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 23 2012, 05:57 PM (201 Views) | |
| Laughing Gravy | Jan 23 2012, 05:57 PM Post #1 |
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![]() I'm continuing my trek through early Hammer films. Last time, you may recall the glowing review I gave Stolen Face, hopefully surmising it was pointing toward much improved product from that studio. I take it back. The next production was a bupke. For it, Lippert not only provided the services of Cesar Romero (who did a bunch of films for Bob Lippert in those days) but also director Sam Newfield. The former provided reliable work, the latter, I dunno WHAT happened. Pretty Bernadette O'Farrell (who played Marian in the British Robin Hood TV series, you remember her) is in a pub waiting for her brother, but he's never going to show up: he was mysteriously run down in the fog. Everyone seems to think it must've been an accident, but visiting American journalist Romero (whom she'd met in the pub while he was mixing up a drink called a Düsseldorf Detonator, and don't even ask) has a funny feeling that, well, that it actually WAS an accident, but since Bernadette is so pretty, he plays along with her. That leads him into a run-in with a Scotland Yard Inspector (see U.S. title of film, or don't) and on the trail of a British scientist who suffered a breakdown and has been locked up in an asylum for two years. Turns out somebody was blackmailing somebody else, init? This is a lousy film, a mish-mosh of comedy, drama, romance, mystery, and nothing at all. Lois Maxwell is billed as the female lead, but she's is hardly in the darn thing (she's the femme fatale, I guess). There's a short fist-fight through the halls of a burned-out London building that I liked, and the climax takes place in a movie studio, real thrifty filmmaking for a studio on a budget, folks. In fact, Hammer was still away from Bray at that point, filming at Hammersmith. Besides Miss Moneypenny, I spotted a couple of other familiar faces from the Bond films, you know, the snotty white guys in M's circle of friends, that type. VCI didn't bother to put this in their Hammer Noir collection, opting instead to sneak it into Forgotten Noir, Vol. 9 with Pier 23 with Hugh Beaumont (2 episodes of an unsold TV detective series, back-to-back) and Case of the Baby-Sitter (a 4-reel streamliner that's barely 40 min. long) for what must surely be the lamest triple-feature in Film Noir DVD history. Edited by Laughing Gravy, Jan 23 2012, 06:40 PM.
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| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Jan 23 2012, 06:16 PM Post #2 |
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Mouth Breather
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These Hammer crime pictures had a terrible reputation back in the day, and personally I hated them. Frankly I'm surprised you found even one you liked, and why you're giving them publicity, even of a negative kind, is hard to understand. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| Laughing Gravy | Jan 23 2012, 06:39 PM Post #3 |
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Well, I'm glad you asked me that, Mr. P. A long time ago (years, maybe), I asked for recommendations for Hammer horror films to augment "the usual stuff" we show on FNF; now in our 26th year, fresh titles are always appreciated. Related to that quest, I got Kinsey's book on Hammer Films: The Bray Studios Years, and I sort of had my interest piqued on those so-called Hammer noirs of the early 1950s. VCI supplied me with their two boxed sets of the darn things, and here I am, off to the races. It's also kinda partially my quest to fill up my spare time with mindless time-wasters as a respite to various stresses in life I endure when NOT watching movies (hence watching the Charlie Chans, for heaven's sake). I also am filling time up with foreign films and vintage classics, drama, etc., that I've never seen before simply because I've never seen them before, and then doing a lot of studying and reading about them, which helps me formulate in my mind how to best adapt things for the screen, that sort of thing. I also enjoy my "100 Years of Movies" time trips, when I have... uhhh... time for the trips. Anyway, movie-watching-wise, life is really good, even if I'm watching fairly terrible B-movies from Britain for 70 minutes once a week. I thought Stolen Face was a gem, and who knows, maybe I'll find some more. At worst, there are films coming up with some actors I usually find interesting, including Dane Clark, Barbara Payton, Paulette Goddard, Dan Duryea, Richard Conte, Lloyd Bridges, and Hillary Brooke. I will watch early Hammer sci-fi, too; already seen Spaceways and have Four Sided Triangle, The Quatermass Xperiment, and X the Unknown on my holding shelf. Really, it's just a quest for something different. As you've noted, I still manage to sneak in a Kurosawa now and then. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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10:54 AM Jul 11