Director Edward Sutherland’s 1944 Universal Pictures black and white film Follow the Boys tries hard to deliver its advertised promise of ‘Hollywood’s Biggest Stars Come Together For A Great Cause!’ with an all-star line-up in Orson Welles, Marlene Dietrich, W C Fields, Jeanette MacDonald, George Raft, Vera Zorina, Charley Grapewin, Grace MacDonald, Charles Butterworth, George Macready, Elizabeth Patterson, Dinah Shore, Donald O’Connor, Peggy Ryan, Maria Montez, Andrews Sisters, Sophie Tucker, Nigel Bruce and Gale Sondergaard.

George Raft plays song-and-dance man Tony West, who organises wartime shows for US troops, in this hugely entertaining World War Two morale-boosting propaganda picture.

Gasp as Orson Welles saws Marlene Dietrich in two in the Mercury Wonder Show, see George Ra...

Director Bo Widerberg’s 1976 Swedish film The Man on the Roof [Mannen pò Taket] starts with the brutal killing of a police inspector in a hospital in Stockholm that initiates a manhunt led by detective Martin Beck (Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt), which reveals accusations of police misconduct and a revenge motive, and culminates with the killer gunning down the police from a rooftop in central Stockholm.

The solid pulp-thriller premise makes a duller film than it should be thanks to the over-familiar plotting and characters. But writer/ director Bo Widerberg nevertheless brings some considerable style to his film, and notches up a good tally of suspense, exciting set pieces and food for thought.

Widerberg’s screenplay is based on Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöös’s novel The Abominable Man.

‘The cabbie, the mob and another little lady!’

Director Francis A Schaeffer’s 1992 slapstick comedy Baby on Board stars Judge Reinhold, who plays a New York City cabbie called Ernie, embroiled with gangster’s widow Maria (Carol Kane) and her baby girl Angelica (played by twin sisters Alex and Holly Stapley). When Maria goes looking for revenge after her mob bookkeeper husband is murdered, she is forced to go on the run with her baby, and meets up with cabbie Ernie.

The pleasantly quirky playing of the genial stars in this fluffy juvenile farce can’t save a strained straight-to-video comedy.

Also in the cast are Geza Kovacs, Jason Blicker, Cecil Halliway, Conrad Bergschneider, Al Bernardo, Patty Elasser, Jerry Levitan, Amy Lyle, Darlene Mignacco, Doris Petrie, Lou Pitoscia, Vito Rez...

Director Bruce Malmuth’s 1990 action crime thriller Hard to Kill stars Steven Seagal (from Above the Law [Nico]) and his iconic ponytail as LA Detective Mason Storm, who proves impossible to kill as he relentlessly pursues a case of high-level political corruption with help from nurse Andy Stewart (Kelly LeBrock). Three hired assassins left him for dead, with his wife killed in their house, and he has waited seven years to even the score, expose the killers and take revenge.

Seagal is in his element in this feebly-written, all-action cop movie, with exciting car chases, shoot-outs and kung fu fights. Steven McKay gets sole writing credit, though a 1989 draft of the screenplay credits Steven Pressfield, Ronald Shusett and Steven Seagal as writers.

Also in the cast are William Sadler [B...

Julia Roberts at the height of her Pretty Woman popularity misses the target as Hilary O’Neil, a private nurse house-help for dying 20-something Victor Geddes (Campbell Scott), a young man suffering from blood cancer. She is utterly gorgeous, he is very handsome and rich even when terribly sick, so what could they do but fall madly for each other?

Director Joel Schumacher’s 1991 Hollywooden romance Dying Young leaves a slightly bad taste in the mouth as it is seeming to cash in on sickness and disease, not taking these grim subjects at all seriously. It is all very glossy and unreal. But, under the circumstances, Roberts and Campbell do so well that you wish they had been given better material to perform.

However, though the film starts well, this story never shows any real conviction,...

‘He has the power to make you live his nightmares… And he’s dreaming about you.’

Director Roger Christian’s 1982 telekinesis/ mind control movie The Sender stars Kathryn Harrold as dedicated Doctor Gail Farmer who searches desperately for a way to save a suicidal young man with telepathic powers, The Sender (Zeljko Ivanek), who is transmitting his nightmares to her and making mayhem in the psychiatric hospital.

This excellent British horror film, made at Shepperton Studios, Surrey, England, and on location in Georgia, US, features some very scary Grand Guignol effects like bleeding mirrors, marauding insects and rats coming out of people’s mouths...

Director Clarence Brown’s poignant, well-made but over-sentimental 1944 tearjerker The White Cliffs of Dover stars Irene Dunne as American heroine Lady Susan Dunn Ashwood, who sits idyllically on the white clifftops of Dover with her British aristocrat husband Sir John Ashwood (Alan Marshal) before he is killed in World War One.

Peter Lawford plays her son John Ashwood II, who follows his father’s footsteps in World War Two. The London based American nurse Lady Susan is now at a hospital awaiting the arrival of wounded soldiers, and hoping her son is not among the wounded, as she recalls the events of World War One.

The White Cliffs of Dover is not in the Mrs Miniver class, thanks to Claudine West and Jan Lustig’s superficial screenplay, based on Alice Duer Miller’s poem, but the spl...