The Earth Dies Screaming (1965)
Alighting on this title whilst surfing the web, I imagined that it was another piece of American rubbish along the lines of 'I Was a Teenage Werewolf' and other hyperbolic screenings. I was wrong, because it's a piece of British rubbish along the lines of 'The Trollenberg Terror': both of which found it necessary to have an American actor in the leading part.
Supposedly set in a northern English village, it was in fact set in Shere, a village in southern England that I have often walked through. The village pub, which, unsurprisingly, I am also familiar with, is a hotel in a film that concerns a supposed invasion by robots that kill the citizens and resurrects them as zombies. Why they do this isn't explained but suffice it to say that although the film was directed by Terence Fisher, a kind of ersatz Roger Corman, and lasts for only 1 hour and two minutes, it was too long by 62 minutes.
A Face in the Crowd (1957)
A guitar strumming hick is visited in prison by a radio station presenter looking for the 'authentic American music' and is later taken up by television and elevated to the position of the nation's homespun philosopher and voice of the common man. From there he is championed by politicians seeking to use his manufactured popularity to ensure the people's vote but he turns on his manipulators and tries to get power for himself.
A less manic performance by the leading player (Andy Griffith) and tauter direction might have created a genuinely interesting film about the gullibility of the average Joe but it manages to be both glum and rampant at the same time and at 2 hours+ it long outstays its welcome.
5/10
British Intelligence (1940)
Given the state of Britain today the title might be considered a contradiction in terms but this American produced film concerns a German spy ring that has infiltrated top-level political circles during WW1.
The master spy is played by Boris Karloff as a sinister crippled ( why are they always crippled?) butler serving in the house of a senior politician and who is planning the bombing of the entire British cabinet by zeppelins in an attack on London.
Unbeknownst to Boris however, the female lead, posing as a German, is in fact a British counter agent who eventually foils the assassination attempt.
This film is a real curiosity with the British police running around firing guns that would make your average Englishman wet his knickers at the thought that police would be so ungentlemanly as to use those nasty firearms in the fight against any criminals, let alone enemy agents.
The American accents are thankfully kept at a low pitch which gives the film an air of authenticity but the creepy Boris Karloff figure is over-the-top and tends to undermine the plausibility of the story.
6/10
