dfordoom

Nathan Juran's Law and Order, a 1953 remake of the extraordinarily dark 1932 western of the same name, based on the  W.R. Burnett novel Saint Johnson. 

With Ronald Reagan in the role played by Walter Huston in the '32 film. The '53 version is OK but nowhere near as good as the original.

You should never remake a truly great movie.

Here's my review.

It might seem like I've vanished from LJ but that's not entirely true. I'm still making at least a token effort to keep my various communities alive. I'm still posting on

cult_movie

movie_greats

vintage_crime

I'm still spending way too much money on books and DVDs. Apart from that, well there's not much else one can do these days.

And the cat is still trying to kill me.

I'm trying to revive my Blogger Strange Tears blog. I'm adding a bit more text as well as the images and trying to vary the content a bit more (including things like photography and fashion). I have no idea whether this will prove to be a worthwhile exercise but I'm going to attempt it anyway.

Here's the link to my recent post on art, photography and the erotic in the 19th century. And yes I know this painting dates from the 18th century but it is sort of relevant.

Continuing my obsession with Chinese ghost stories:

The Bride from Hell is a Shaw Brothers movie from the period when the Hong Kong studio was making tentative forays into horror movie territory. It's not a complete success but it has its spooky moments and it's worth seeing as an example of how sharply Chinese ghost stories differ from their western counterparts.

Here's the link to my review.

Since I’ve started rambling on about 60s spy movies I might as well talk about another of my passions, eurospy movies. These were of course attempts to cash in on the Bond movie craze but they had a vibe all their own. Here are some of my favourites.

The Golden Claws of the Cat Girl (1968) is perhaps a bit similar in tone to Mario Bava’s Danger: Diabolik. It’s about a sexy female cat-burglar and it’s fun.

Attack of the Robots (1966) is an early Jess Franco flick, before he got into lesbian vampires and stuff. It’s a stylish eurospy offering and it stars the great Eddie Constantine (more famous as Lemmy Caution).

Lightning Bolt (1966) is an obvious Bond movie knock off dealing with a nefarious attempt to sabotage the US space program. A nifty little film.

Including Seven Golden Men (1965) might be a bit of a cheat because it’s a heist movie rather than a spy movie but it’s so good I’m including it anyway.

Special Mission Lady Chaplin (1966) is absolutely top-notch eurospy stuff. Plus it has nuns with submachine guns. You gotta love that.

Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill (1966) is the first of the very successful Kommissar X movies. It has robot girls with 60s bouffant hairstyles, which is a major plus.

Man on the Spying Trapeze (1967) is another solid eurospy movie, with atomic-powered rockets and denture cameras. Fun.

The subject of Ralph Thomas’s 1960s spy movies came up in a reply to my previous post. I have to say that I really really enjoyed his two Bulldog Drummond spy movies, Deadlier Than the Male and Some Girls Do. The latter has glamorous girl robots! Not quite out-and-out spoofs but great lighthearted fun romps.

Another 1960s British spy movie that I liked a great deal when I saw it years ago is Sebastian, with Dirk Bogarde and Susannah York. I’ve been wanting to see it again but it just seems to have disappeared into oblivion.

I pretty much love all 1960s spy movies, both British and American, but I think my absolute favourite has to be an American offering, The President’s Analyst (1967). Very funny, very clever and with a biting but weirdly good-natured satirical edge.

I also have a soft spot for the Derek Flint movies (starting with Our Man Flint) and I have to admit to liking even the Matt Helm movies (I’m particularly fond of Murderers’ Row but The Wrecking Crew is fun as well).

It’s not that I don’t like serious gritty spy movies but the more lighthearted 60s spy movies are a great tonic.

So apart from being stalked by killer pussy cats what have I been up to recently? Nothing terribly exciting but I've seen a few good movie and read a few good books so I'll share them with you, with links to my full reviews.

Probably the best movie I've seen recently is The Wicker Man (1973), which co-star Christopher Lee regarded as the best British horror movie of all time.

Eyewitness (AKA Sudden Terror, 1970) is a bow budget but truly excellent British thriller.

Untamed Youth (1957) is a juvenile delinquent movie which, unusually for the 1950s, is totally on the side of the juvenile delinquents. And it stars the awesome Mamie van Doren and she sings a couple of pretty good rock'n'roll songs,

Hot Enough for June (AKA Agent 8¾, 1964) is a delightfully light-hearted British spy romp.

Chu Chin Chow (1934) is one of the strangest musicals ever made. They're aren't many musicals that feature mass murder. It's bizarre, but bizarre in a good way.

As for books, Walter Wager’s 1975 spy thriller Telefon is excellent. And it features a KGB agent as the good guy.

Charles Eric Maine's Spaceways is an intriguingly offbeat 1953 science fiction murder mystery.

Matthew Head's 1950 mystery The Congo Venus is, as its title suggests, set in the Congo. With lots of overheated passions!

I had to get a new hard drive put in my computer. The old one wasn't dead but it was clearly on the way out - it's usually not a good sign when your computer takes twenty minutes to reboot. So that all went fine and the new hard drive is pleasingly fast. The only problem is that the computer guy managed to put a bloody great scratch on the screen. Right in the middle of the screen.

So now he's supposedly trying to find a replacement glass for the screen. Given that the computer is an ageing iMac that might be a challenge. He's vaguely promised to replace the computer if he can't get hold of a replacement screen. We'll see how that goes.

And the cat is still trying to kill me.

If it's not one thing it's another.

Graham Greene’s The Comedians was published in 1966. It's a love story/political thriller set against the backdrop of the rule of the infamous Papa Doc in Haiti. Maybe it's not quite top-tier Greene but it's still very much worth reading.

Here's the link to my review.

Kuroneko (or Black Cat) is a 1968 Japanese ghost movie. I love Japanese ghost movies and even though this isn';t one of the greats it's worth a look just for the visuals.

Here the link to my review.