Pratfall Parade - *

1967, USA, 84 minutes, Black & White

Compiled by Bobby Oldman

Featuring Chubby Hardbasket, The Flagpole Fops, Hoy Hoy Shinsplint, and many more

A monotonous stream of public domain pratfall clips from third tier silent film comedians. Beside material that lacks wit and panache, the viewer is subjected to nonsensical title cards written by compiler Oldman (who rumour has it was really an aging and senile Chubby Hardcastle). “A cheeky be you, monkey mama” after a dog steals a hot dog out of Hardbasket's back pocket (causing him to fall into wet cement). Or “Now never funny now” as The Flagpole Fops foolishly climb as a group to the top of a flimsy flagpole and tip into a lake. “There's more were you look yon lobster”, “I says you good trespass. Away yo please mister”, and “Fall sister all you doing PARADE” are not even worth explaining.

Watch out for – this movie.

Quote – “Teh Ending FIN”

Reviewed by R.P. Thunderdunk

Classy and Discrete - ***

Goes together like cheatin' and Eton

1967, UK, Colour, 113 minutes

Directed by Nigel Attenwood. Written by Bryce Salmonds

Starring Farley Grant, Lewis Adie, Maxwell Pointer

When Lord Antrim dies his three sons are shocked to discover that he's gambled everything away, bar the country estate. With no real talents of their own aside from being droll Oxford wits, they turn the family estate into a ultra high class Gigolarium hoping to make money and find rich, desperate wives. But things go awry when hippy shopgirl Carly Scluffert organises a big rock concert on the ground the same night as the Brighton Ladies Knitting Club is booked in. Good fun, and the Lewd Lords are a great house band.

Watch out for – the painfully amusing dildo scene when the elder Antrim brother tries to talk Scluffert out of the concert with discounted sex; a rich comic metaphor for the changing power structures of Britain.

Quote – “I'd be able to sit down if the mortgage payment wasn't due tomorrow.”

Reviewed by R.P. Thunderdunk

Funny Fist - ***

The lighter side of violence

1983, Hong Kong, Colour, 90 minutes

Directed by Leonardos Ho. No writer credited.

Starring Jackie Lee, Ron Goldman, Kwok Van Heller, John Lee Rocker

Painfully funny kung fu farce starring Jackie Lee, the scandalously neglected heir to the thrones of Brute Lee, Jocky Chan, Jackie Pan, and Bruce Eel. Lee stars as Jackie, the only remaining student of a kung fu school that teaches the Funny Fist: a technique of unrivalled power in bringing laughter to one's enemies and peace to children and old women. But his dubious martial background makes him unwanted by the kung fu fighting advnturers he hopes to explore the world with, so he toils away in his home village violently entertaining children. When Dutch marauders hit town while all the other warriors are away questing, it gives him the chance to prove himself. Cue a heady stream of Dutch puns, fart jokes, prat falls, a brilliant “Tulip Fever” marketplace routine, and the greatest unicycle fight scene in history. But ... Sterm, the leader of the Dutch villains, is known as The Man Who Never Laughs. Can Jackie tickle his ribs?

Watch out for – the classic closing freeze frame on a grinning Sterm.

Quote – “I want an encore even though it means getting hit again.”

Reviewed by R.P. Thunderdunk

Self Shine - ****

Let's Party!

1991, USA/Canada, Colour, Running Time

Directed by Sally T McGowen. Written by

Starring John Daily, Tracey Author, Arbor Saislink and someone called simply “Siren”

While masquerading as the tale of an immigrant trying to make his way in a new country, Self Shine is in-fact a surreal guide on how to be a hedonist on minimum wage. With a superb script and male lead (Saislink) this has to be one of the stand-up examples of the American Dream. So next time that guy with the accent on the street asks to shine your shoes, just say “Let’s party” It is just a pity the director’s follow-up film was the thrice dammed Further From the Sea.

Odd moment – Well, pretty much the first 30 minutes is odd. Keep an eye out for mocking references to Eddie Murphy’s 1988 film Coming to America.

Reviewed by Juan Incognito

Crikey, Sheila - ***

Bloody hell woman!!!

1986, Australia, Colour, 88 minutes

Directed by Lobo Cluggins. Written by Tingo Malinga

Starring Matty Green, Sharon Ockley

An amusing Aussie comedy about a hapless carpenter with “the dizziest wife in the state”. Oh, that Sheila and the problems she causes Murray. Those problems go from crazy to zany when they decide to buy a rundown outback pub and restore it to its former glory. Lovers of slapstick and pratfalls and impossible-to-overuse catchphrases will love this one.

Watch out for – the installation of the grand staircase, which should have Chaplin crying in his pinebox.

Quote – What else could it be but “Crickey, Sheila”?

Reviewed by R.P. Thunderdunk

I've Got the Trots - *

Try to hold your laughter in!

1986, USA, Colour, 90 minutes

Directed by Carl Manheim. Written by Paulie Oakenfeld, Kyle T. Ghomes, Sal Pilly (script). Lois Nubar (story)

Starring Al Alman, Jolie Manheim, Pinto the Horse, The Hubert Trollings Five

An uneasy mixture of toilet humour and horse racing. A thief steals a Kentucky Derby horse from an Animal Hospital, not aware that it’s in there for severe diarrhoea. The film seems to exist solely due to the terrible pun in the title. There is a limit to how often you can see people being sprayed by a horse’s “bazooka colon”, and this film passes that point in the opening credits. The finale, where the horse uses its rectal rocket boost to win the Derby while coating the other racers in faeces is, frankly, repulsive.

Watch out for – Pornstar Corky Corvette playing a veterinarian - hired as a nod to her famous role in “Barnyard Escapades”.

Quote – “Ever since I stole you I’ve been in the s**t.” (Sorry, but that is the best joke in the film).

Reviewed by R.P. Thunderdunk

Forthright Cliché – ***1/2

You know where this is going, darling

1955, USA, Black & White,

Directed by Arthur Garvin. Written by Alan Rys, Daniel Maher, Trick Jones (strictly for marketing purposes)

Starring Trick Jones, Suzanne Leonardo, Kipper Smith

What makes a leading man click with the public? Is it the chiselled jaw? The witty off-the-cuff remarks? The ease of seduction? Or is it all about solid dialogue and well chosen roles? After watching Forthright, what some would call the seminal Trick Jones opus, I'd say a mixture of all three.

As the above breathless commentary suggests, this film has it all, and by all I mean 1950s American beefcake (that was born in Britain but you'd only know because he was knighted later on in life by that Jones fanboy of fanboys, HRH). Which no doubt was the main draw card at the time. But in the modern world women and men demand a more defined visage and so the movie must stand more upon things other than a pretty face. And it does.

Gordon Smith does something at the Mill, something that gives him time to lounge about wearing sharp suits and chatting up the secretaries. So he's probably the boss's idiot nephew or something. But he has another mistress, one that doesn't wear a low cut blouse. Yes, Gordon is an alcoholic, but the good kind, one who solves crime. I could go on for hours, but why, when you really came just to see a blurred still of Jones leaning on the bar?

Quotable – "Ma'am, the only list you forgot today was the one with my name on it. Next to yours."

Reviewed by Juan Incognito

The Dream Sequencer - ***1/2

Il a rendu des films trop personnels même pour le Français

1971, France, Colour, 95 minutes

Written and directed by Philippe Gaga

Starring Philippe Gaga, Sylvie Marie Sylvie, Rot Callais

A whimsical silent fantasy written, directed, and starring French mime Gaga. He plays a formerly famous film technician who used his invention to record people’s dreams onto film while they sleep, a highly economical way of making dream sequences. But when the French New Wave hits, dream sequences become blasé, and he finds himself unemployed. To make ends meet he works as a psychoanalyst, but his patients are so intensely crazy that mere celluloid can’t contain their dreams. He becomes trapped in his patients nightmare world with his saucy secretary Coco, and can only escape by curing them with two-fisted Freudian psychoanalysis. Good fun.

Watch out for – the scene where Gaga and Coco hide in a giant prosthetic butt crack to avoid being shot by a squadron of milk-shooting breastplanes; predating the Death Star raid in Star Wars.

Quote – “…”

Reviewed by R.P. Thunderdunk

An Absurd Touch – **

Love burns like lightning, with a touch of the absurd

2003, Italy, Colour, 97 minutes

Directed by G. Dellato. Written by Ales Mariont

Starring Jules Pertoni, Maria Kuminoz

Maree and Thomas are a lovable young couple who decide to move from a small country town to the big city in order to save their marriage. After all, if ready access to hip jazz bars and espresso joints will not revive a relationship then what will? The initial promise of this film was great, who could fail to be moved by the awkward tenderness displayed by Thomas as he eats his first pain au chocolat to the gentle amusement of his fellow customers. Sadly this is about as good as it gets, as a succession of tired clichés are trotted out for the amusement and education of the audience. The card sharp, the Big Issue salesman, the surly kebab cart owner and the heavily made up teenage girls are all paraded about like this can somehow make up for a plot, or proper characterisation.

Moment of amusement – Maree taking fashion advice from the local three card monte hustler. Turns out one can never have enough glitter.

Reviewed by Juan Incognito

Brittle Bones vs. Malibu Hercules - *

Smashing!

1987, Hong Kong, Colour, 92 minutes

Directed by Wang T. Dong. Written by Liang Hu

Starring Gang Tang, Marcy Kwan, Leroy Hong

Mind numbingly awful family film about the neighbourly disputes that happen after the Hercules family move from swanky Malibu into a Kowloon apartment building. Brittle Bones is Mr. Wu, their elderly public servant neighbour who, as a running gag, is constantly breaking his hips yet somehow gaming the medical system to get speedy replacements. The film is essentially a series of stupid gags that revolve around stairwells, mah jong, and super strong people breaking the elderly in half.

Watch out for – Mr. Wu refusing to grease the medical system's wheels when Mrs. Hercules gives birth to a three-headed dog.

Quote – “You can't blame Mr. Wu, son. During the Cultural Revolution people didn't get much milk.”

Reviewed by R.P. Thunderdunk

The Club of Men - ****

The Club of Men Saves the Day Again

USA, 1950, Black & White, 120 minutes

Directed by Ryan G. Grant

Starring Gus Stevens, Mix Arnolds, Hank Smith, Joe Fielding, Anthony Manhield

There is trouble in Harlem, somebody stole all the chickens and Mr Solly doesn't like it when he doesn't have an egg for his breakfast! With that frantic cry one of the world's greatest movies begins. A two hour festival of witty dialogue, gripping mysteries and sinister slap stick, enough to make Arsenic and Old Lace look like the worst kind of hash paint-by-numbers writing! Is it any wonder Truman made the director a Poet Laureate?

Greatest moment – when Mr Solly is reunited with his chickens

Reviewed by Juan Incognito

Queue World - **

For those who wait, something will come

1978, USSR, Colour, 94 minutes

Written and directed by Nikolai Petrov.

Starring Boris Bure, Antonina Tolstya, Tatiana Bakzynyza

A surreal Soviet film about a fictional European country that can only be traversed by joining the various queues snaking across the countryside. While a rather obvious metaphor for the endless queuing due to food shortages and all-encompassing bureaucracy, director Petrov had a good reputation in the West, and had secretly sold distribution rights before filming started. Sadly, news of the subversive film’s plot leaked out and half way through the cast is replaced by rather thuggish looking Bolsheviks who perform bad anti-American stand up comedy for the remainder of the running time. A pity.

Watch out for – The forced laughter of the inmates of a Siberian gulag during the 'how many bourgeoisie does it take to turn an boulder to gravel' comedy routine.

Quote – “I heard that if you take this queue far enough you’ll come to a line for blue jeans.”

Reviewed by R.P. Thunderdunk