Thursday, April 29 - The Cool Mikado

The Cool Mikado (1963)

Based on the 1885 Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Mikado, the plot is reset into contemporary Japan as a comic gangster story.

Hank, the son of American judge Herbert Mikado, refuses to marry Katie Shaw, whom his father wishes him to marry, and so joins the army (this apparently happened earlier; he is in the army at the start of the film). He is stationed in Japan where he falls in love with a Tokyo art student, Yum-Yum. However, her fiancé, Ko-Ko, an American gangster operating in Japan, is determined to keep Hank and Yum-Yum apart. Hank's father had also sentenced Ko-Ko's brother to prison.

Wednesday, April 28 - Oh, What a Duchess!

My Old Duchess (1934)

The film is a marvellous filmed record of the spirit of traditional British music hall, or vaudeville, comedy. George Lacy plays the lead in this film, which is the only film in which he ever acted. He was Britain's most famous female impersonator, and he spent most of his life (he died aged 85) playing 'pantomine dames' on stage.

An actor masquerades as the duchess of a stately home to impress a wealthy American producer and his daughter.

Tuesday, April 27 - Paid

Paid (1930)

Unjustly sent to prison, Mary Turner (Joan Crawford) plots revenge upon those who sent her there - district attorney Demarest (Hale Hamilton) and Edward Gilder (Purnell Pratt). Once released she meets Joe Garson (Armstrong), an experienced crook, and together they concoct a breach of promise scam to be perpetrated upon the well-heeled elderly. In an ambitious step, Mary weds her enemy's son Bob Gilder (Douglass Montgomery). At the end, she has come to terms with her past and seeks peace of mind rather than revenge. A subplot involves a police-thwarted heist of a painting and the capture of Mary's comrade-in-crime Joe Garson (Robert Armstrong).

Monday, April 26 - Highway Patrol: Plant Robbery & Released Convict

Highway Patrol (1955–1959): Plant Robbery (Season 1 | Episode 25 - aired 19 March 1956)

Three thieves use a counterfeit armored car and stolen uniforms to steal $29,000 from a supermarket. The leader of the group becomes increasingly unpredictable and prone to violence as Dan Mathews and his men close in.

Highway Patrol (1955–1959): Released Convict (Season 1 | Episode 26 - aired 1956)

A patient parolee decides the time is finally right to attempt the recovery of $250,000 stolen in an armored car robbery.

Sunday, April 25 - A Kid for Two Farthings

A Kid for Two Farthings (1955)

In a lower-class London community of small shops, open-air vendors and flea-marketers, Joe, a small boy, lives with his mother, Joanne, who works in and rooms above the Kandinsky tailor shop. Joe is innocently and earnestly determined to help realize the wishes of his poor, hard-working neighbours. Hearing from Mr. Kandinsky the tale that a captured unicorn will grant any wish, Joe uses his accumulated pocket change to buy a kid with an emerging horn, believing it to be a unicorn. His subsequent efforts to make dreams come true exemplify the power of hope and will amidst hardship.

Saturday, April 24 - Drum

Drum (1976)

Drum was born to white prostitute Marianna, who raises him with her black lesbian lover Rachel. He grows up to be a fighter and is often forced to bare-knuckle-box other slaves for the entertainment of the owners, including gay Frenchman Bernard. Bernard wants to sleep with Drum and vows revenge against him when he rejects him. Drum and his friend Blaise are eventually sold to plantation owner Hammond and taken to his plantation to work. Hammond also purchases Regine and brings her to the plantation as his own personal bedwench, but Hammond's fiancée Augusta is jealous and has other plans for her. Hammond's daughter Sophie wants to sleep with Drum, but he won't for fear of being killed. Sophie also attempts to sleep with Blaise; after he rejects her, she tells her father that he raped her. It's a lie, but Hammond puts Blaise in chains and decides to have him castrated for the alleged rape. In fact, the best way to castrate a slave is a conversation topic at the dinner party that has been arranged to celebrate Hammond and Augusta's engagement; Bernard is a guest. During the party Drum frees Blaise from his chains, and the other slaves launch a violent uprising. Bernard shoots Blaise during the fighting and Drum grabs Bernard's privates and rips them off. Both slaves and slavers are killed during the battle, but Drum saves Hammond and Augusta.

Friday, April 23 - The Password Is Courage

The Password Is Courage (1962)

Based on a true story, this film follows Sergeant-Major Charles Coward (Dirk Bogarde), a brave British soldier captured by German forces during World War II. When he's thrown into a prisoner of war camp, he immediately plans his escape. Masquerading as a wounded German soldier, he makes it as far as the medical tent, where the deceived enemy forces award him the Iron Cross. Though he is ultimately discovered, he goes on to courageously pursue his freedom with a whimsical and undying audacity.

Thursday, April 22 - Carve Her Name with Pride

Carve Her Name with Pride (1958)

True story of young English war-widow Violette Szabo, who became a secret agent in occupied France during World War II. Exposed to the brutality of the Gestapo and the degradation of the concentration camps, she found herself facing a continual struggle for survival, but through sheer courage and grim determination, she eventually became the first woman to be awarded the George Cross.

Wednesday, April 21 - Alice, Sweet Alice

Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) Communion (original title)

The film is about a spoiled 12 year old girl named Alice played by Paula Sheppard. She is jealous of her angelic 10 year old sister Karen who is played by Brooke Shields. One of her church's priests Father Tom gives Karen his mother's crucifix and Alice is very jealous. Alice torments Karen by taking one of her dolls and scaring her by wearing a weird translucent mask and a raincoat. She threatens Karen not to tell anyone.

On the day of her First Communion, Karen is strangled to death in the church transept by a person wearing a translucent mask and a yellow raincoat. Her body is stuffed into a bench compartment near the confessionals, which is set on fire with a candle, but not before her crucifix is ripped from her neck.

 Alice comes into the church to receive her communion but is found to have Karen's veil.

The film is pointing to her as the killer, but...

Tuesday, April 20 - The Fallen Idol

The Fallen Idol (1948)

Baines, an English butler working at a French embassy, is more of a father to the ambassador's young son, Phillipe, than the ambassador. But the hated Mrs. Baines, the head housekeeper, is not a mother to him. Phillipe discovers Baines is having an affair with a young French woman working as a secretary in the embassy. But he's too young to realise what he knows. He believes Baines's story - the young woman is his niece, and he agrees to keep the matter a secret. Secrets and lies become the dominant themes of his young life -- especially when he thinks he's witnessed a murder.

Monday, April 19 - Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Rose Garden

Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–1962): The Rose Garden (Season 2 | Episode 12 - aired 16 December 1956)

Mr. Vinton (John Williams) is a publisher who has traveled from New York to Louisiana to see an older woman, Julia (Patricia Collinge) about a book she's submitted to him for publication. However, as Vinton stays with Julia and her sister, Cordelia (Evelyn Varden), he begins to notice many details from the murder mystery Julia's written and the home as well as their names. In fact, the details are so close that he begins wondering if perhaps the story is less fiction and more true crime!

Sunday, April 18 - A Quiet Place in the Country

A Quiet Place in the Country (1968) Un tranquillo posto di campagna (original title)

A talented, imaginative painter(Franco Nero)is having trouble finishing any of his paintings. His matron and lover (Vanessa Redgrave) arranges for him to stay at a quiet villa out in the country. Instead of getting any work done there, however, he becomes obsessed with the story of a beautiful and promiscuous 17-year-old girl who was mysteriously killed at the villa during WWII. The older locals (especially the men) are equally obsessed with the girl, and they all end up holding a bizarre séance. But it is only the painter who starts seeing her ghost and eventually solves the mystery. Or does he?

Saturday, April 17 - Poor Cow

Poor Cow (1967)

A young woman lives a life filled with bad choices. She marries and has a child with an abusive thief at a young age who quickly ends up in prison. Left alone she takes up with his mate (another thief) who seems to give her some happiness but who also ends up in the nick. She then takes up with a series of seedy types who offer nothing but momentary pleasure. Her son goes missing and she briefly comes to grips with what is most important to her.

Friday, April 16 - Celia (1989)

Celia (1989)

Set in mid 1950s Australia, with the fear of communism in the air and the country’s farmlands overrun by a plague of rabbits, the film depicts a long hot summer seen through the eyes and over-active imagination of nine year old Celia. Shaken by the death of her beloved Grandmother, Celia finds herself adrift between the cruel games and rituals of childhood and the incomprehensible world of grown-ups. With monstrous creatures stalking her dreams by night, those imagined terrors blur by day with the banal brutality of the adult world and lead to tragic and shocking consequences.

Thursday, April 15 - Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies (1963)

Amidst a war, a plane carrying a group of schoolboys crash lands on a deserted island. With no adult survivors, the boys are forced to fend for themselves. At first they cooperate, but when the they split into two separate camps -- one led by the pragmatic Ralph (James Aubrey) and the other by militaristic Jack (Tom Chapin) -- their society falls into disarray, leading to a disturbing examination of human nature and a chilling conclusion.

Wednesday, April 14 - No Trees in the Street

No Trees in the Street (1959)

Surrounded by new 1950s East End high-rise flats, a London detective thinks back to how different things were in the late 1930s. Then it was an area of overcrowded tenements teeming with impoverished unemployed people with little or no hope. He relates the story of attractive young Hetty who desperately tried to stop her younger brother descending into crime while her mother was endlessly urging her to take up with Wilkie, a smooth local racketeer, in the belief this would get the family out of poverty.

Tuesday, April 13 - Castle of the Creeping Flesh

Castle of the Creeping Flesh (1968) Im Schloß der blutigen Begierde (original title)

The muddled plot involves an aristocrat, the Earl of Saxon (played by Euro-horror regular Howard Vernon), who is attempting to bring his daughter back to life, the poor girl having been raped and killed. A group of revellers arrive at the Earl's castle and stay the night, after which I became totally lost, suffice to say that the film attempts to compensate for the fact that it makes little sense by chucking in lots of female nudity and quite a few scenes of real open heart surgery (all of which comes as quite a surprise for a film made in 1968). There's also a savage attack by a wild bear (played by a man in an unconvincing bear costume).

Monday, April 12 - The Deadly Trap

The Deadly Trap (1971) La maison sous les arbres (original title)

Jill and her husband Philip are an American couple living in Paris together with their two small children. Philip is currently an office worker, but he used to be involved with some shady organization which now wants him to do one more job for them.

Meanwhile, Jill and Philip are having marital problems, which are exacerbated by Jill’s mental instability—she has memory lapses and paranoid suspicions of Philip being unfaithful. The couple also has a neighbor, Cynthia, who shows an unusual interest in their affairs.

One day, when Jill is out for a walk with the children, they go missing. The couple contacts the police but Inspector Chameille, who leads the investigation, is unsure whether the children were actually kidnapped or harmed by their erratic mother.

Sunday, April 11 - Love on the Dole

Love on the Dole (1941)

Mr Hardcastle is a miner; his son, Harry, is an apprentice at a local engineering firm and Sally, his daughter, works at a cotton mill.

As the depression takes hold, Mr Hardcastle's mine is put on a three-day week and Harry becomes unemployed when his apprenticeship ends.

The family’s plight is made worse by reductions in means tested unemployment benefits (the dole), while the unexpected pregnancy of Harry’s girlfriend, Helen, causes further tensions.

Sally has met factory worker and Labour Party activist Larry Meath, but their marriage plans are put in doubt when Larry loses his job. Larry is fatally injured when he tries to restore calm in a clash with the police during an unemployment march. Sally, reluctantly at first, becomes the mistress of a wealthy local bookmaker to help keep her unemployed family.

Saturday, April 10 - Eye of the Spider

L'occhio del ragno (1971)

Antonio Sabato plays Paul, a criminal who has spent some time in prison in Austria, after being left behind by his associates in a heist. Paul is helped to escape by Professor Krueger (Van Johnson), who needs him in order to carry out another heist. Assisted by Kruger's sexy girlfriend Gloria (Lucretia Love), Paul is to blackmail (his rightful) money from his former associates, which he is then to share with the Professor. However, Paul is more interested in vengeance than in money, primarily against his former boss (Klaus Kinski)...

Friday, April 9 - Take a Girl Like You

Take a Girl Like You (1970)

Northerner Jenny arrives in a town near London, where she has taken lodgings with a Labour candidate in order to take up a job as a teacher. She quickly meets Patrick, who knows another girl at the lodging house but shares the goal, along with his friend Julian, of having sex with as many women as possible.

After a first date which ends at Patrick's flat for coffee, Patrick is shocked when Jenny tells him she is a virgin and intends to stay that way until she meets the right man. Jenny is attracted to Patrick, so they get into a volatile relationship as Patrick tries to change Jenny's mind, without giving up his bachelor status.

Thursday, April 8 - Return from the Ashes

Return from the Ashes (1965)

Shortly before WW2 in Paris, Michelle Wolf, a doctor played by Ingrid Thulin meets a Polish refugee, Stanislaus Pilgrin played by Maximilian Schell. Although warned that he is only after her money, she falls in love with him. When the Germans capture Paris, Stanislaus – in his self-confessed, one gallant act of his life – marries Michelle, who is Jewish, to stop her being deported by the Nazis. But she is sent to a concentration camp anyway.

Years later, Michelle returns to Paris under an assumed name. But she is a changed woman emotionally and physically. Thought to be dead, no one recognises her at first. Although she is reacquainted with Stanislaus and her stepdaughter, the beautiful Fabi, played by Samantha Eggar, they believe that she simply bears a strong resemblance to the Michelle they knew. They want her to play Michelle in a complicated plot to retrieve funds that have been frozen since the war. Michelle goes along with the plan not realising that Fabi and Stanislaus have become lovers.

After revealing her true identity, Michelle moves into her old apartment with both Stanislaus and Fabi. From there the story becomes darker and darker...

Wednesday, April 7 - Black Sheep of Whitehall

Black Sheep of Whitehall (1942)

Professor Davis, who teaches at a correspondence school, discovers that a Nazi Agent is trying to prevent a trade treaty being signed between England and South America. The agent is posing as an economics expert seconded to the trade delegation. The professor must find the real economist and expose the agent.

Tuesday, April 6 - Wake in Fright

Wake in Fright (1971)

After finishing up the school term in a remote outback town, teacher John Grant (Gary Bond) looks forward to spending his holiday with his girlfriend in Sydney. But John gets waylaid in a mining town where a gambling spree leaves him completely broke. He quickly falls in with the hard-drinking locals, who constantly ply him with alcohol and force him to participate in a gruesome kangaroo hunt. Disgusted, John tries to hitchhike out of town and, when that fails, begins to contemplate suicide.

(a young schoolteacher who descends into personal moral degradation after finding himself stranded in a brutal, menacing town in outback Australia.)

Monday, April 5 - Charley Moon

Charley Moon (1956)

Charley Moon (Max Bygraves) is a country boy who, after a national service stint in the army, becomes a small-time music-hall performer. After a few lucky breaks, he finds himself popular and the star of a musical hit in London's West End. Initially successful, Moon soon decides that showbiz is a facile occupation, and he longs to return to his childhood home. He eventually finds himself back where he started.

Sunday, April 4 - Loot

Loot (1970)

This adaptation of Joe Orton's play focuses on a motley bunch of characters crammed inside a small hotel owned by Mr. McLeavy (Milo O'Shea). While the body of McLeavy's wife lies freshly dead in a nearby room, her nurse, Fay (Lee Remick), plots to become the next Mrs. McLeavy. Meanwhile, McLeavy's son and his friend try their best to hide the spoils of a bank heist. As a dim-witted priest and a crooked officer enter the fray, hilarious misplacements, trysts and shocks unfold.

Saturday, April 3 - What a Crazy World

What a Crazy World (1963)

Unemployed East End lad Alf Hitchens has an on-off relationship with his girlfriend Marilyn and a dream of hitting the big time in the music business. Cheerful pop musical with a working-class background which uses a number of genuine London locations.

Friday, April 2 - I Believe in You

I Believe in You (1952)

This is primarily the story of a retired diplomat named Mr. Phipps who decides to become a probation officer in post-war London. After an awkward period of adjustment, he starts to become emotionally invested in the various characters, old and young, under his care. Far from being jaded, the ex-diplomat finds himself taking risks and promising too much in a sincere desire to transform the lives of his clients.

Thursday, April 1 - Bedtime Story

Bedtime Story (1964)

Benson is a Casanova who despises women and invents all sorts of tricks to bed them and leave them. His favorite one is going through Germany posing as an American GI of Teutonic extraction. Whenever he spots a girl he likes, he takes a Polarod picture of her house, knocks on the door waving the photo and pretending to be on a pilgrimage to this very cottage his grandmother so vividly described. It is an infallible system for a hit-and-run seduction.

Benson seems content with his game until he meets Jameson, a real operator who has learned to combine sex with money. Jameson poses as an exiled prince and not only gets women to share his bed but also to bestow their jewels on him for the sake of the counterrevolution. Benson decides to corner Jameson's market on sex plus finance. A contest develops, and whoever wins will dominate a small Riviera resort as "King of the Mountain," the film's original title. Remade in 1988 as "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels."

Wednesday, March 31 - Give Us the Moon

Give Us the Moon (1944)

Made in 1943-44, the film is set in a future peacetime Britain, after the end of World War II. Peter Pyke, the son of a millionaire hotel owner, had been a RAF pilot during the war but, much to the frustration of his hard-working father, he does not want to work for a living, and idles his time away while living in his father's hotel (named "Eisenhower Hotel"). So when Peter stumbles across a group of people, mainly White Russian émigrés who call themselves “White Elephants” and refuse to work or be of any use to society, he eagerly accepts their invitation to join them.