Entertaining Mr Sloane

The photographer’s murderer he is, and then the photographer’s assistant’s murderer (the Dadda’s).

The Poofter and the Mumsy take him in, “turn and turn about”, but it’s all right, folks, they’re married.

All the critics agree that the acting is splendid, the play was much better, and the direction so-so.

Theater of Blood

Many’s the critic consoled by the finale, it’s explained in the film that they’re “only human”, the filthiest and most obdurate escapes death with a lie on his lips (“to goad him into the modern”) for that very reason, the worst of them shows at times a spark of humanity, a dim sense of life, a moment of inspiration.

The witty ones die easy, the clever boots who turn a phrase to death.

They die appositely, from Shakespeare.

Brannigan

A counterfeiting case in Chicago turns into a mob abduction in London.

Of course it’s the same case.

Lt. Brannigan has to pick up the boss, he’s skipped and all, now he’s kidnapped.

Much to-do with the ransom payments, and a hit man out for Brannigan.

A superb film, adroitly directed by Hickox to the limits of ability.

The reviews were negligible.

Sky Riders

Strictly speaking the construction is half-screenplay, half-filming, this is quite deliberate, the two halves unfold like a pair of wings and create the effect, the image.

It meant nothing to the critics, Time Out Film Guide reached the nadir of a BFI review, “pure slop.” Richard Eder of the New York Times suffered mightily, “cardboard... lead... long, boring crash.”

Little Nellie almost certainly inspired this, in Lewis Gilbert’s You Only Live Twice.

Hang Gliders Air Circus vs. World Activists Revolutionary Army “fighting the tyranny of worldwide imperialism.”

Such a raft of symbols “where intended”, such a pictorial representation, such a drama to depict “a raid on the inarticulate.”

An exquisitely calculated masterpiece, in the last analysis.

In Halliwell’s Film Guide, “old-fashioned actioner with new-fashioned political concern.”

Zulu Dawn

In which the action of Endfield’s Zulu is explained.

Her Majesty’s government express the confident hope that “it will be possible to avert the very serious evil of a war with Cetswayo”, the civil and military authorities at Natal invade Zululand.

Thus divided, tactically as well, the British are overrun at Isandhlwana. The Zulus move on to Rorke’s Drift.

In contrast to Endfield’s orderliness, Hickox uses a long lens to lose the picture in the action. A vital comparison can be drawn to Richardson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade.