Am in a 'routine or pattern' with these posts but wouldn't call it a rut which to me often means boring or a state of being blah. As usual will begin off with an American series and think there will be 2-3 more posts with this format as I'm trying to finish off as many seasons as I can of my boxsets, still have so many more TV shows to go but am making a dent. Have watched a pair of movies, one from Germany and the other from England but unsure of how many more will be in this post. Am seriously leaning to watching an older Japanese film for this post and did need a break from them but have a feeling if I watch one then will be hooked again!
EDIT: Did watch an Asian film though one from Korea and won't be talking about it in this post. It was a horror flick that was so confusing, it was an okay movie but because of my confusion let me wait before reviewing it. Also decided that a post is plenty big enough with one drama and three movie reviews, the point behind this series was to make the posts smaller and easier to read. Have accomplished both but once the sections for women are added in the posts are becoming huge again. So for a while will keep the format of one drama and three films along with a section or two of some Hotter than the Sun women and hope I'm not the only man who feels that way with our lead off vixen! Hmmmm, vixen isn't the proper word for his classy woman but that word just popped into my mind and don't think I've used that before though that'll soon change!!!!
Of course when a woman has a post for herself she'll naturally lead off that post with a sizzling photo along with many more of them. But in this 'My Current Watches' series now have over forty posts so a different woman has been leading off, one that's often in a drama or movie I'll be reviewing. For the first time we have a repeater as far as having the honor of leading off these posts and the woman who is so deserving is Barbara Shelley! Know she was way before our time but she's still such an attractive woman plus a superb actress and I honestly prefer her kind of 'sexy photos' to the ones from gravure models and J-Pop Idols, those do get tiring after a while. A few posts ago had a mini review for Barbara's 1961 film "The Shadow of the Cat", she had the lead role in that film. For today will have another movie with Cat in the title, it's from 1957 and was Barbara's first time having a lead role. She was known as the first Scream/Horror Queen and up until 1967 starred in so many fright flicks, she slowed down on her movie acting after that but did appear in a "Doctor Who" series and so many TV series. Barbara was born in 1932 and lived until 2021, she passed away a few weeks before her 89th birthday. I've seen her in three other movies plus have recently gotten four others I had never seen so you'll be seeing her in many more future posts, these days it's such a rarity to see women have the classiness she and many other actresses had in semi-ancient times. In an oddity Barbara was married in 1960 but her husband died in an auto accident less than a year later, she never got remarried and you'd think the line to wed her would have been thousands of miles long!
An American TV series I've discussed in three previous posts is "Person of Interest" which ran from 2011-16 and had 103 episodes. While it's not my favorite show it's darn close and it just may be the best series ever, had it run for another season or two it could have been my #1 of all time. Viewed the entire series last year, now I'm on a rewatch and just completed the fourth season again. The whole show seems so much better this second time around, the intensity level is so sky high and you're gasping for air viewing an episode! Have talked about what this series is about in previous posts plus there's much info about it on the web. The show revolves around an AI program simply called The Machine, it was developed after September 2001 to help the US government predict terrorist attacks before they happened. The program is quite complex and very few people on Earth can understand it so of course there had been many attempts to steal The Machine or disable it which all failed. The creator was a man named Harold Finch, that's his last name in this show but he uses many other last names such as Whistler in season four to keep his identity a secret.
Finch did have some help from 2002-10 designing the program with his partner and best friend Nathan Ingram but Finch did most of the work. In 2010 Ingram was killed in a government bombing and Harold's right leg was badly damaged but he's learned to move around somewhat well. The US government is only interested in terrorist attacks or other threats against the country which The Machine can figure out by such a long and complex series of obscure and random clues. Harold still had access to the machine and was concerned about the other threats The Machine discovered which were crimes by ordinary people, Harold's team would snuff out the criminal act but when they learn of the person they don't know if that selected target is a victim or the perp. Along the way Harold assembled a team with the main person being the ex-Army, ex-CIA veteran John Reese. If you're in a fight there's no one else you want on your side, as time went on the team had grown to including two NYPD homicide detectives though one has been murdered. Two others were a woman named Root, real name Samantha Groves, she's almost as smart as Harold when it comes to computers and she's also such a lethal fighter. Also a lethal combatant is the fifth member Sameen Shaw who was kidnapped halfway through this fourth season but will be returning in season five, she's like Reese as she was in the military for a while and none of us would want to mess with her!!!!
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He's sold it to the American government but had to use some devious methods for that to be successful. Greer has told the high ranking officials he's sold the program to that he's only interested in making the world and America a better place to live. Which is such a massive lie for the goal of him and Samaritan is to rule the world, they're using NYC and the area around it for their experiments. Which can be good as Samaritan did stop crime for one day and Greer proved to his partners in Congress the strength of the program, the next day though he created a massive crime wave! So how Samaritan is used all depends on it's handler/owner though it is developing a mind of its own. At the end of the third season Harold and his team had to abandon their hi-tech HQ which had been an old city library, they've set up shop at an unused underground Metro station. That previous HQ had been discovered by Samaritan and the five..... Harold, Reese, Sameen, Root and Fusco.... are now targets of Greer's machine and need to stay away from any kinds of cameras or tracking devices. But before Harold fled the library he did one final deed which has kept his team alive, he was able to hack into Samaritan for two seconds using his Machine and it programmed Samaritan to make the five irrelevant and to overlook them.
But that wouldn't be 100% foolproof so Harold has assumed the identity of a college professor named Whistler, Sameen Shaw is working in a store and Root seems to assume a new personality each day! One other act Harold did besides hacking into Samaritan was to create a new identity for John Reese which was of being a homicide detective named John Riley, this allows him to stay up on crime news and John doesn't have to worry as much about cameras for he is a detective and Samaritan's camera consider him to be a non-threat. The same goes for Lionel Fusco who had already been a detective since episode one, at the time he was quite corrupt but has cleaned his act up and has become such an asset to Harold's team. In this fourth season the battle was on with The Machine facing off against Samaritan, the first ever war between AI programs! Samaritan's program knows no morals and will do anything to make Greer and his vast army controllers of the world, it came so close to destroying The Machine but Harold was able to save part of his 'Baby' and for the final season can he make it strong enough to defeat Samaritan who seemingly can already control the world but Greer is taking things a bit slow and safe. That's because a few times the Decima company has been thwarted by Harold, Reese and their small group, I forget how the battle went in the final season!
That was the main story through this season's 22 episodes but there were many other important subplots. For instance Sameen has been kidnapped by Greer's team and that happened when Harold's group stopped Decima from taking over the NYSE! We rarely saw Sameen in the last dozen episodes because of the kidnapping and that was written into the show for in real life Sarah Shahi was pregnant, she'll be saved at the beginning of season five. Then there was a struggle of power between the older Elias and a young upshot named Dominic for control of New York's gangs but in the end both had been killed by an assassin from Decima! What's a shame about that is Elias was my favorite male character, he may have been a life long criminal mastermind but was likable and did help Harold's team out often. Of course there's many other things that took place but there's not enough time to discuss every detail, instead will say if you haven't seen this show yet drop what you're doing and start on it tonight! "Person of Interest" may not be my all time show, would place it third, but will say it could be the best American series made to date, along with millions of others wish this had gone on for a few more seasons. Below are some pics from the series and also a video of the final minutes of episode 22 when Harold saved The Machine from certain death, after this is one other mini segment for this series.
Of the six on Harold's team that are trying to keep peace and order in NYC along with the rest of the world my favorite has been Samantha Groves, better known as Root. She first appeared at the end of season one and what a storyline her character had as the person she put a hit on was herself! Then Root appeared in about a third of the season two episodes but with the third season Root became a FT cast member and such an important one. Harold is in a class of his own when it comes to technology but Root isn't far behind and she's been an invaluable cog to the team. Which hasn't always been a smooth ride and during this fourth season Harold even banished Root from the team for she wanted to kill a potential girlfriend of his!!!! All was smoothed over and when Harold was able to save The Machine at the end of this fourth season it was mainly due to the efforts of Root. For some unexplainable reason The Machine can communicate with Root telepathically and she's the only person on the planet with that ability. Root is one stunning looking woman yet is so intelligent plus she's an ace marksman and seemingly knows every trick in the book when it comes to fighting! It just occurred to me now and what may have been an interesting series is an offshoot of "POI" that featured Root! I definitely would have viewed that and wonder if that idea was ever thought of?
Playing Root is my #1 current American woman Amy Acker and in each post that has a "POI" section also have one for Amy. She's the only American gal I've given a perfect 10/10 to, only three others have had that honor who are all from Asia. When this series aired Amy was in her late thirties, this December she'll be hitting the age of fifty and can't believe how old my massive favorites have become though she still looks fabulous. Besides her underrated alluring presence Amy has such a soothing voice but also one that can scare the spots off a leopard, check out this series for examples of that. Amy has been in many other dramas though has never had a role such as this one and I want to see her in a few other TV series. She did do a guest spot on "Supernatural" but "Person of Interest" was the series she's had the most appearances in which was 65 episodes. Amy did have a largish role in the "Angel" series and I wouldn't mind checking that show out. Above are some photos of Amy as a sizzling civilian while below are some pictures of her as Root. Who is in the above video plus there's one after the photos from season one, it was the first episode Root appeared in and at first she seemed like such a ruthless character!
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Now to today's three mini movie reviews and as I added in at the top for a while will keep the format of having one drama and three films. Not many of the films I've reviewed so far are must watches but all have been quite good and enjoyable. The same goes for today's trio of movies but this first one I would just give a grade of 8.2/10 to even though it starred Barbara Shelley. "The Cat Girl" was a 1957 movie that ran for 73 minutes but the action really dragged for about a dozen of them which is why I lowered the grade but it's still a film worth viewing. Barbara looked amazing in this movie and I much prefer the way actresses looked so many decades ago, also their classiness and aura were underrated turn ons! This was Barbara's first lead role and she did a terrific job in this, the problem was the script and if ten minutes had been cut off this movie would have been much better. Above are some lobby cards for the movie and those were so common in the 1950's/60's, I think they look pretty cool! Most 1950's and 60's horror films weren't truly horror nor do they ever give me the creeps. I would consider them to be mysteries with a touch of eeriness and often an interesting story, that describes this film quite well. In the first screenshot is Barbara who plays the lead role of Lenora Johnson, with her is Lenora's newish husband Richard. In the second screenshot are their two friends Allan and Cathy, Richard once went out with her and they never stopped caring for each other as they were caught smooching one time by Lenora's very old uncle Edmund Brandt, he's in three screenshots below.
He had asked his niece Lenora to visit him at his old and crumbling estate, no location was given but the village was fairly remote. Lenora had grown up at the estate after her parents had died in an accident, the minute she turned eighteen she left her uncle for the place was only full of bad memories. Lenora is now 25 and recently married, her uncle Brandt asked her to pay an important visit to the castle and to come alone with she obviously didn't do. The uncle Brandt and Lenora are the last two surviving members of the family, written in a sacred family book is the rule that when the eldest, such as Brandt is now, hits the age of seventy they must perform a ritual and pass on the dreaded family curse to the next eldest. Which usually would be the man's wife or brother who would be sixty or so but Lenora is the only other member of the family. Below you can see Edmund letting a leopard(!) out of a cage, that is the family curse and it's not an animal a human turns into. But the person with the curse does become that leopard in their mind and can control the animal's thoughts in a psychic way, as we learn at the end the human can also feel all of the huge cat's pain and if it's severe enough can also die!
It's not a werewolf curse but similar as the leopard does attack and kill humans which is the one part of the movie I didn't quite understand well, when and why does the leopard choose his next target? After hearing her uncle's tale Lenora wanted nothing to do with any sort of ritual but one didn't need to be performed for Edmund Brandt was slain the next day by the leopard, his cursed spirit entered Lenora's body and she had no say about the evilness now inside her! Least she did inherit her uncle's estate and his wealth but wanted nothing to do with either. Before the quartet headed back to London the leopard struck again, this time the target was Lenora's cheating husband Richard who at the time was making out with Cathy. Edmund had kept the leopard locked up but now that he's dead the animal just silently roams the countryside and no one was aware such an animal existed. Lenora blamed herself for Richard's death as she felt she was there when the killing happened which in a way was true. For just before the leopard killed Richard Lenora had connected with the animal in that psychic way so Lenora thought she had done the brutal act! Arriving on the scene was a psychiatrist named Brian Marlowe, he had grown up with Lenora and the pair may have dated at one time but now both are married, in Lenora's case she's now a widow. Dr. Marlowe brought Lenora to a London hospital and somehow the leopard followed her there, she was always aware of the animal's presence but how to explain that to anyone else?
Final segment and there were a pair of incidents at the hospital when Lenora lost control of her mind and as you can see below in a screenshot thought her hands were becoming hairy paws! But her ex-flame Marlowe believed in Lenora and discharged her early which was a huge mistake on his part, he had his wife Dorothy watch over Lenora until he could find her a place to live. Which never happened as on that first night Dorothy was so creeped out by Lenora's psychotic and creepy behavior, she left to meet her husband for a late dinner. That never happened as Lenora followed the woman and came so close to making her the third recent victim of the leopard after the uncle Brandt and Lenora's husband Richard. While chasing Dorothy Lenora had tried to dodge a car that just happened to be driven by Marlowe who was out looking for the pair and that evasive move was a failure. However when Marlowe got out of the car he discovered it wasn't a human he hit but that cursed leopard(!), now he believed that family story/curse of Lenora's. The leopard was dead and lying forty feet away was Lenora who is in the bottom screenshot. She too was dead and her body was in the same position as the leopard's so whatever would happen to the animal would also happen to the cursed Brandt family member! So ends this first movie review and writing this up made me realize it was a better movie than I first thought but the final grade for it just moved up a notch to 8.4/10. The story was decent and there was some creepiness that was effective plus Barbara looked so fabulous, not a must watch movie but those positives make it a worthwhile watch and it's only a 73 minute film. The screenshots below will help you follow the story a bit better and after them is a trailer for the movie which is quite good as it makes the film appear to be much more horrific than it actually was!
Here's another example of an older horror movie which was very light on the horror and scares but one that I did enjoy quite a bit. Horror films could be my favorite genre but been noticing with my recent watches perhaps these semi-horror movies with a lot of mystery, eeriness and some Noir thrown in are ones I enjoy the most or at least for older movies. "House of the Damned" was a 1963 movie that was just 63 minutes long and as I've said often I prefer movies in the 65-85 minute range. Because that means there's very little filler, the pacing often moves right along and when the films are shortish I can view two in a night. The above had four paragraphs but the goal is to have only three for a movie so let me squeeze everything into 2 1/2 paragraphs though after the screenshots is one more mini section for the film which is for the female star Merry Anders. In this film she plays the role of Nancy Campbell, she's been wed to her husband Scott(Ron Foster) for close to a year and he's an architect. One evening Scott received a call from a buddy he hadn't seen for a while who was Joe Shiller(Richard Crane), he worked at a law firm and that place has recently taken ownership of the Rochester Mansion which is located on the California coast north of LA. Joe wants to hire Scott and his wife Nancy to survey the old estate as the previous tenant had been there for almost ten years, does any renovating, repairs, etc. need to be done(?) so Joe wanted his one time close mate Scott to do the project which he agreed to. The following morning he and Nancy drove to this mansion which is above and that's a nice looking place. There really was no horror in this film but the eeriness began when the couple came nearer to the mansion, quite a bit of creepiness also took place inside. For example when they went on the dirt road leading to the estate the road was blocked off by a Do Not Enter sign that Scott removed, when they came back down the road an hour later the sign had mysteriously been put back!
That return trip into town was to visit the real estate agent Quimby who had the only set of keys, the pair should have stopped there first. Quimby did give the couple a brief history of the Rochester Mansion which was built forty years ago by an eccentric but wealthy heiress named Pricilla Rochester. She didn't live there long for she had killed a man and was currently in an asylum! Priscilla has escaped a few times and made it back to this unnamed town, I expected her to appear in a deranged state at her mansion but it never happened. So after the meeting with the real estate agent Scott and Nancy Campbell will be spending their first night at the mansion, in two days Joe Shiller and his wife will be visiting. The Campbell's will be spending four nights unless Scott gets hired FT for the renovation project which means that stay will be extended. There were no heart attack inducing creeps but there were plenty of minor ones, for instance Nancy found a cat in the sitting room and how did it get inside the house, it looked to be well fed. Plus some objects would just fall from their perch and one did break, the biggest puzzler was that the house keys had disappeared though reappeared some hours later with two of the keys missing! The following evening the power went off and the couple needed to use candles for the rest of the night, the next morning it somehow began to work normally! But even though there were those incidents Scott and Mary were able to complete most of their assignment by measuring the entire house, taking notes for what needs to be repaired among other things but there were two rooms they were unable to enter, were the keys to those the ones that disappeared without a trace? The next day which was the third there for the Campbell's Joe Shiller's wife Loy(Erika Peters) arrived alone but was supposed to be with her husband. Who made his appearance that afternoon and the couple are not close at all, seems to me that Loy couldn't stand the sight of Joe!
Last bit for this movie and up until now I thought Joe was going to be the main villain in this movie but that was far from the case. Loy didn't want to spend the evening at the mansion, if Joe wouldn't leave with her she'd return home alone. However Loy disappeared without a trace shortly after, the trio searched the mansion high and low with no success. Hmmmm thought the three, could the two doors they were unable to enter be where they mystery of Loy could be found along with why there's been so much creepiness at this deserted mansion which wasn't quite deserted! Joe was able to break down the door to room #1, there lying on his bed dead was the previous tenant Arbuckle. He was an old man and it appeared he died by natural causes, it's why he never renewed his lease to the mansion and he had been a carnival owner. The second mysterious door led to the cellar and there were three 'Freaks' as the woman told the trio. For many years they had been living in the cellar and had worked at Arbuckle's carnival for so long, when he retired he still took care of them. So all of the eeriness that had creeped out the Campbell's were because of this threesome, Loy was found safe in the cellar and the Freaks had no intention of scaring anyone, the movie ended with the three leaving the mansion to hook up with another carnival! So this was far from a scary flick but it was an enjoyable movie for me to watch, the story was solid enough and interesting so the 63 minutes flew right by. There is a decent trailer after the screenshots but the man Richard Keil was only in the movie for about two minutes. He appeared in so many horror movies back in the 1960's and his huge size was a big reason for that, he was also in two of those older James Bond films.
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It's nice to have a mini section now and again for a forgotten woman and one that most of us had never heard of. Merry Anders had the lead female role in the above movie and two posts ago she was in another movie that was reviewed, "The Hypnotic Eye". That came out in 1960 and that was one creepy film, Merry's character of Dodie had burnt herself badly in the face by pouring acid on it! Merry was in so many of these B-movies from the 1950's and 60's which are my favorites so you may be seeing her mentioned again in the future. Merry retired from acting in 1972 and it wasn't to raise a family as she was single from 1956 to 1986. Merry was born in 1934 and lived to 2012, she was 78 when she passed away. It's hard to explain why certain women catch my eye while most others don't, Merry did and besides the two movies mentioned have seen her in a few others. These Merry photos may be a bit tame but I think she looks fabulous in them and a woman doesn't need to reveal everything to attract our(my) attention. The year after "House of the Damned" Merry had another female lead role which was in the sci-fi movie "The Time Travelers" which I've never seen. But will be checking it out soon and after these terrific photos is the movie's exciting trailer!
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We've hit the end and this was the best of the three films for today, none were classics but I enjoyed them all. Have been having an International format for these mini movie reviews as I try to have 3-4 different countries represented, for today there were films from England, American and will end off with the second German movie that has been reviewed in this 'My Current Watches' series. The above woman had the lead female role in this film playing the role of Yvonne Kruger, her name was Renate Ewert. She did a terrific job in this film and many others who saw this movie gave her very high marks for her acting. This final film "The Mystery of the Green Spider" was released in 1960, Renate was 27 in age at the time. It seemed she was a popular actress for many years after this came out but in 1966 at the age of 33 committed suicide as her career by then was on the wane and that was such a tragedy.
The Germans love the mystery/detective/thriller/Noir genres all rolled up into one for a film, in the country the term for it is Krimi. Those kinds of films were so popular from 1956 until the mid 60's, they began to lose their popularity but continued on and in that decade of being so successful there were hundreds of these kinds of films. I've now seen two and will be viewing more as they're so darn interesting and entertaining. Let's get to this mini review and the Green Spider in the title referred to the name of a Cabaret, those were popular all around the world back in that time. This was an 88+ minute film and bet 25 or so minutes featured singing and dancing on the cabaret stage but the songs were upbeat and fun so that did help the film out. The Green Spider cabaret packed them in and would have many singers during the evening, their most popular performer is in the first screenshot below. Her name was Maria Moulin and during her final song would leave the stage, the lights would then go off but there would be a spotlight on the trumpet player Ted who would play a solo to end off the performance. That solo would be so blaring which meant even loud noises couldn't be heard such as a gunshot for while Ted was doing his trumpet solo Maria was shot in the wardrobe room and no one heard it! There is a wardrobe woman named Berta but she was always too tipsy and couldn't give the police any details of what happened. The only other potential witness was the barmaid Yvonne Kruger who had brought Maria some champagne after her performance, she claimed Maria was already dead when she entered the wardrobe room and the shock made her pass out.
The next day is when the intense police investigation began and there was so little evidence to go on. All signs pointed to Yvonne being the guilty party but the main inspector Bock didn't think so, to me it appeared he had thought the cabaret owner Elena was the shooter and I had been thinking that way too but in the end it we were both wrong. Bock worked with an assistant named Wiedenhofen who was quite gung-ho, both did work hard on the case but neither was correct on who the killer of Maria was. Nor of the second death for a few days later the usually inebriated wardrobe lady Berta was also shot at the same place Maria was, at first it was considered a suicide but Bock deduced the killer was covering his tracks. A person who had a key role in the film was the reporter Peter who would be at the Green Spider cabaret almost every night, now that there were two killings there he was at the club almost all day long and thanks to him the case was solved before there were any more than those two killings. Peter had such a crush on Yvonne and she slowly began to have feelings for this man, Yvonne was just a barmaid and was only working at the club in the hopes someone would notice her singing talents. Five years prior Yvonne had spent some time in an asylum and that was after her mother had been killed! The police ruled it a suicide but Yvonne knew better, Peter was the only one to believe her story which did turn out to be true. Being a reporter can open many doors and also the archives at a newspaper office are quite helpful, when not at the cabaret Peter was at this office poring over old news stories.
He had discovered that the trumpet player Ted had fled to South America five years ago and had recently returned to Germany. There were many holes in his story about why he returned and also with his alibi when Maria was shot even though the alibi was of him performing that trumpet solo! Ted was always known as just a so-so trumpet player when he left, why did his skills improve so much in those five years when he was away? They didn't and Peter discovered that Ted had returned with an ace trumpet player named Jorge, when the lights went out during the trumpet solo the crowd presumed Ted was playing. But Peter had his doubts and relayed those to the inspector Bock, during that night's solo Peter turned on the lights and to the shock of the crowd it was Jorge playing and not Ted! Who at that moment was on the verge of killing perhaps two more, one was the cabaret owner Elena and he had once dated her before he fled to South America, Ted was uncomfortable with how much she knew about him. Also targeted was Yvonne and Ted confessed to her he had killed her mother five years ago, seems Ted had dated the mother for a while but just dumped her to move on to Elena, Ted was a 'Lady's Man' and can see how women would fall for him. Rushing in time to save Yvonne was Peter along with Bock, they heard it all and Ted was arrested, at his trial he got a life sentence! There was a happy ending as Peter became a star reporter because of that story and a year later got married to Yvonne, the film ended on that note. This was such a fast paced movie and in the last twenty minutes there had to be 2-3 plot twists, add in some cool upbeat pop and jazz tunes from that era and this is a film that I highly recommend. This Krimi genre is one I'll be pursuing more in future movie watches, will also be keeping this International theme going for a while and think the only biggish country I've never seen a movie from is France. After the screenshots is a trailer for the film and it does help you follow the story better viewing the screenshots, especially when they're subbed like these are.
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