The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Likeable entry from the 1940s period when Disney was putting out animated anthologies, this conducts adaptations of The Wind in the Willows and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Not to be confused with the Joel Schumacher atrocity, this was the second Batman film ever made, a 15-chapter serial. This is mostly worth watching as a novelty in its laughable attempts to approximate the superheroics of the comic-book in comparison to modern counterparts
Adaptation of Mark Twain’s classic about a modern man thrown back to the time of King Arthur. This has been made as a vehicle for Bing Crosby and makes for fairly excruciating viewing today
From the early days of Hammer Films, one of several films based on Dick Barton, a popular radio hero. A progenitor of the spy movie with the title hero trying to prevent foreign agents unleashing a deadly sonic ray
One of a number of films based on the most famous of all Japanese ghost stories. This is a adaptation made in the neo-realist style of the period that was released in two parts
An obscure and little-seen but fascinating Japanese copy of The Invisible Man films wherein a scientist becomes an invisible man after taking his formula. Let down by weak effects.
A comedy in which Ray Milland is cast as a chemistry professor who becomes a baseball star after inventing a wood-repelling chemical
Twelve chapter serial that introduced the character of the Rocket Man who appeared in several subsequent adventures. This has an enthusiastic pulp naivete but ends up mostly routine
This was the first Hollywood film about leprechauns, although quite a different work than those that followed. American Tyrone Power encounters a leprechaun on a trip to Ireland
Many of the people involved in the 1933 King Kong came back together to create another giant ape film. Much overlooked, this is one of the masterpieces of stop-motion animation
Charming post-War Ealing Studios comedy where the London suburb of Pimlico declares themselves a separate country
One of the first depictions of an android on film, a madcap British comedy of manners about the creation of an android woman
Classic British adaptation of the Alexander Pushkin’s story about a soldier who seeks the secret of selling one’s soul for a winning hand at cards
Classic adaptation of a D.H. Lawrence story where a boy’s rocking horse has the ability to predict winners at the racetrack. Shot in stark black-and-white and set amid the grim economic realities of post-War Britain
The first Tarzan film after Johnny Weissmuller’s departure and replacement by a blank Lex Barker, although in all other ways is still the same tired formula. One of the few Tarzan films of the era to employ fantastic plot devices (a Fountain of Youth) but seems to have little idea what to do with it