cult film freak

QUENTIN TARANTINO/ROBERT RODRIGUEZ 'FROM DUSK TILL DAWN'

2026-10-26T18:02:27.028-07:00

Year: 1994 Rating: ****1/2

Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS had a lot of tension within a limited interior space while, around the same time, another about-to-break indie filmmaker Robert Rodriguez made a mostly exterior, hyperactive exploitation flick titled MARIACHI...

So in their collaboration FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, written by post PULP FICTION Oscar-winner Tarantino and directed by Rodriguez, there are particular scenes of long, drawn-out dialogue (Michael Parks's opinionated rural sheriff is a standout) that erupts in the kind of frolicking action fare that Tarantino would only subtly wield as a result of his characters' back-to-the-wall predicaments...

George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

So the fast-moving director pepped up the cerebral auteur's terrorizing yarn, where the action's caught in a genre-bending whirlwind... and finally providing Tarantino an acting performance that's not a glorified cameo, but completely secondary as George Clooney's twisted bank-robbing partner/little brother...

As there could have been an entirely separate film about The Gecko Brothers, Richie and Seth, and that's part of what's been the heaviest overall critique: that Tarantino's crime-genre first-half, involving the bank robbers kidnapping a RV-driving Texas family to cross the Mexican border, is the best thing going: so by the time a giant barroom of truckers and strippers turn into CGI vampires, the best of DUSK is dead and gone...

Tom Savini and Fred Williamson in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Which is only half true... since what's a nail-biting thriller turns into frantic vampire bedlam, with two terrific side-characters, played by iconic 1970's football player turned blaxploitation star Fred Williamson and applied horror effects guru Tom Savini (also featuring stripping vamp dynamo Salma Hayek)...

Sharing terrific chemistry with and against Clooney, wielding the kind of rebellious mentor confidence he'd lack before or after (OUT OF SIGHT a slight exception); Tarantino's passive/aggressive geeky predator; and first-billed veteran Harvey Keitel, underplaying the former preacher/father role alongside an actress usually prone to completely overboard performances...

George Clooney and Juliette Lewis in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

With a shy, virginal confidence effectively morphing into a bonafide action starlet, Juliette Lewis has never been as subtle or effective, particularly when having to kill her adopted brother...

Providing no-name Ernest Liu a worthy one-hit-wonder addition: to what's equally character-driven as plot-intense, mostly thanks to a director creating a fast-moving intentional cult classic from its very inception.

Quentin Tarantino in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

George Clooney in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Salma Hayek in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Quentin Tarantino and George Clooney in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Harvey Keitel FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Cheech Marin in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Fred Williamson in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Tom Savini and Fred Williamson in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Kelly Preston in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN with Harvey Keitel

Kelly Preston in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Tom Savini and Fred Williamson in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Harvey Keitel in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Kelly Preston in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Kelly Preston and George Clooney in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

John Saxon in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Juliette Lewis and Ernest Liu in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Michael Parks in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

John Hawkes in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

George Clooney in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN with Quentin Tarantino

George Clooney in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Marc Lawrence in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Lawrence Bender in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

FRANTIC CHARACTERIZATION OF RIDLEY SCOTT'S ORIGINAL 'ALIEN'

2026-10-23T13:43:30.767-07:00

Yaphet Kotto, John Hurt and Tom Skerritt in ALIEN Year: 1979 Rating: ****1/2

In the first act of Ridley Scott's science-fiction horror classic ALIEN, composer Jerry Goldsmith's otherwise meticulously dark score is optimistically adventurous when three of seven spaceship crew-members are investigating a planet that will lead to John Hurt getting the worst stomachache in the history of exploitation cinema...

He's even the first to awake from a cryogenic slumber, being one of two Janet Leigh PSYCHO-inspired characters — deliberately misleading the audience into thinking he'll be around much longer...

Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm and Sigourney Weaver in ALIEN

Reverse for Sigourney Weaver's final-girl Ripley... who's not in charge, a role belonging to Tom Skerritt's intrepid, logically-inclined Dallas... Yet she's the most professional and downright sensible, much to the subtle chagrin of who's technically the most important character upon re-watching...

Ian Holm's Ash is the film's biggest secret, particularly during the initial medical investigation of the host creature: eventually igniting the middle-twist by the time this mechanically slow-burn thriller turns into a frenzied final-act emergency situation that includes a lot of loud screaming and violent deaths...

Yaphet Kotto in ALIEN

The first thanks (or no thanks) to former BIRDS child starlet Veronica Cartwright, whose entire purpose is to make everyone — from the audience to her fellow astronauts — more panicked than they'd be (or feel) otherwise...

Especially the caustic yet likable, scene-stealing fan-favorite in Yaphet Kotto's Parker, who, along with Harry Dean Stanton, are the wage-seeking blue collar mechanics aboard this particular future's standard government vessel — more an interstellar garbage truck than the kind of exploration/star-cruising rescue-ship they're misled into becoming...

The baby Alien from ALIEN

Bringing aboard the titular ALIEN, a sinister-quick, creature-feature spree-killer that takes out a relatively small band of people we get to know from the inside-out, literally in some cases... so everyone has a uniquely strategic and individualized life and death all their own...

Particularly (and most famously) John Hurt's Kane, in the alien-protruding-from-the-stomach interrupted-lunch-break that ALIEN is mostly known for, igniting a brutally bloody sequence that's never been equaled (only parodied) since...

Tom Skerritt (with Mother) in ALIEN

Meanwhile, visually, mostly backed by gothic artist H.R. Giger's Kafkaesque purgatory (and demonic planet) visuals, director Ridgey Scott borrowed the used future vision of George Lucas's epic yet sparsely basic, white-walled, digital-grid-monitored STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE...

Progressing the groundbreaking effects from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY — that Scott atmospherically reverts back into his personal mentor (Kubrick's) claustrophobic tension: yet dealing with a far more lethal antagonist...

Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton and John Hurt in Alien

Famously providing Sigourney Weaver not only a career-defining, strong-female role but an equal amount of importance to Tom Skerritt's otherwise capably stalwart leadership, making his fate that much more ill-timed and nightmarish — leaving the frantic last-half a frenzied aftermath of his own tragic (and suspensefully torturous) departure: becoming the second PSYCHO "too important to leave so soon" Janet Leigh character...

In a unique space thriller with so many twists and turns that, by the girl-verses-foe finale, we've already been put through the ringer — making ALIEN (unlike any of its sequels) far more centered around the people than the creature.

Tom Skerritt in ALIEN

Tom Skerritt and Ian Holm in ALIEN

Sigourney Weaver and Ian Holm in ALIEN

Sigourney Weaver, Yaphet Kotto and Veronica Cartwright in ALIEN

Harry Dean Stanton, Yaphet Kotto, Ian Holm and John Hurt in ALIEN

John Hurt, Tom Skerritt and Ian Holm in ALIEN

Ian Holm in ALIEN

Tom Skerritt and Ian Holm in ALIEN

Harry Dean Stanton in ALIEN

Harry Dean Stanton in ALIEN with Sigourney Weaver and Veronica Cartwright

Ian Holm in ALIEN

Yaphet Kotto, John Hurt and Tom Skerritt in ALIEN

Ian Holm in ALIEN

Sigourney Weaver in ALIEN

Harry Dean Stanton in ALIEN

Sigourney Weaver in ALIEN

Tom Skerritt in ALIEN

Sigourney Weaver in ALIEN

Tom Skerritt in ALIEN

Sigourney Weaver and Tom Skerritt in ALIEN

JANE GRIFFITHS WITH LAURENCE PAYNE IN 'THE THIRD ALIBI'

2026-10-22T18:42:17.086-07:00

Jane Griffiths and Laurence Payne in THE THIRD ALIBI Year: 1961 Rating: ***1/2

In the 1961 neo noir thriller THE THIRD ALIBI, Laurence Payne looks like a young James Mason with high anxiety caused by many problems, but he really only has one... or, two... maybe three: beginning with the fact he's a composer of a rehearsing musical and doesn't have a lot of cash in the bank...

Relating to his primary concerns, the staple of any noir having to do with two dames: one's his wife in extremely pretty good-girl blonde Patricia Dainton, and then her dark-haired bad-girl step-sister Jane Griffiths...

Patricia Dainton in THE THIRD ALIBI

With full lips and a sultry scowl, the latter's used to portraying secondary female leads, and she's intense and edgy as the intense and edgy dame who traps the man through an unwarranted pregnancy.... but it's Dainton, extremely sophisticated and looking like a bonafide royal princess, who turns tables with sneaky table-turning tricks...

Providing the back-against-a-corner Payne several more obstacles, including the usual murder plot to make things less complicated, personally... that doesn't turn out as planned: making ALIBI an effective hour-long thriller with neat twists curving around stage-like melodrama that's never overly dramatic.

Patricia Dainton in THE THIRD ALIBI

Jane Griffiths and Laurence Payne in THE THIRD ALIBI

Jane Griffiths in THE THIRD ALIBI

Laurence Payne in THE THIRD ALIBI

Jane Griffiths and Laurence Payne in THE THIRD ALIBI

Patricia Dainton in THE THIRD ALIBI

Jane Griffiths in THE THIRD ALIBI

Jane Griffiths and Laurence Payne in THE THIRD ALIBI

Laurence Payne in THE THIRD ALIBI

Jane Griffiths in THE THIRD ALIBI

Patricia Dainton in THE THIRD ALIBI

Jane Griffiths and Laurence Payne in THE THIRD ALIBI

Jane Griffiths in THE THIRD ALIBI

Patricia Dainton and Laurence Payne in THE THIRD ALIBI

Patricia Dainton in THE THIRD ALIBI with John Aranatt

JANE GRIFFITHS WITH RONA ANDERSON IN 'SHADOW OF A MAN'

2026-10-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

Year: 1954 Rating: **

A year before dashing, smooth-voiced Canadian actor Paul Carpenter starred with classic beauty Rona Anderson in STOCK CAR, they were semi-paired up in a mystery thriller that attempts THE THIRD MAN to the point where, in some of the opening exposition, a third man is even mentioned...

And it's all about the husband of Anderson who's dead before, during and after the murder plot-line: imagine that happening with Orson Welles as Harry Lime, never providing Joseph Cotten a payoff...

Rona Anderson and Jane Griffiths in SHADOW OF A MAN with Ronald Leigh-Hunt

Leaving otherwise talented Paul Carpenter a wasted role throughout a stagey melodrama where Rona's true cohort is equally lovely, rounder-faced starlet Jane Griffiths, with an other-woman/femme fatale potential thoroughly wasted...

In fact, all the characters kind of wait around for a conclusion that's neither who-dunnit tense or crime-genre thrilling: a shame since both ladies at least seemed prime for something memorable.

Rona Anderson and Paul Carpenter in SHADOW OF A MAN

From SHADOW OF A MAN

Paul Carpenter and Jane Griffiths in SHADOW OF A MAN

Jane Griffiths in SHADOW OF A MAN

Rona Anderson in SHADOW OF A MAN

Rona Anderson and Jane Griffiths in SHADOW OF A MAN

Rona Anderson and Jane Griffiths in SHADOW OF A MAN with Paul Carpenter

Rona Anderson and Jane Griffiths in SHADOW OF A MAN

JOHN THAW WITH JACK WATSON & INGRID HAFNER 'FIVE TO ONE'

2026-10-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

John Thaw in FIVE TO ONE Year: 1963 Rating: ***

British icon John Thaw is best known as the hard-edged, grouchy yet equally charming chief detective on England's THE SWEENEY television series in the 1970's... but he had appeared on big and small screen pictures of the previous decade, and in the case of FIVE TO ONE it's both at the same time...

Featuring Thaw as one of three con-artists nabbing money from a crooked bookie, this was a cinematic b-crimer that wound up on the EDGAR WALLACE MYSTERIES anthology show... and seems more of a pilot episode of what would have been a pretty nifty series...

Ingrid Hafner in FIVE TO ONE

Although Thaw is somewhat out-shined by resilient girlfriend Ingrid Hafner and talkative partner Brian McDermott just for the fact that, as the gang's leader, he's not given enough of the character-actor qualities that would make him more sneaky and nefarious, which were traits even as the hero on THE SWEENEY...

Featuring Lee Montague as his primary target and ever-durable Jack Watson as the token investigator, FIVE TO ONE is a nifty fifty-four minute programmer that's both grungy and sophisticated: which describes both the characters and the story, although there needed more of the first dealing with such unapologetic lowlifes.

John Thaw in FIVE TO ONE (with real life friend/co-star Tom Courtenay poster)

John Thaw in FIVE TO ONE

Ingrid Hafner in FIVE TO ONE

John Thaw in FIVE TO ONE

Lee Montague and Heller Toren in FIVE TO ONE

Ingrid Hafner in FIVE TO ONE

John Thaw in FIVE TO ONE

Jack Watson in FIVE TO ONE

Heller Toren in FIVE TO ONE

Edina Ronay in FIVE TO ONE

Ingrid Hafner in FIVE TO ONE

John Thaw in FIVE TO ONE

Ingrid Hafner in FIVE TO ONE

John Thaw and Brian McDermott in FIVE TO ONE

Heller Toren in FIVE TO ONE

John Thaw and Brian McDermott in FIVE TO ONE

DAWN ADDAMS IN EDGAR WALLACE'S MYSTERY 'THE £20,000 KISS'

2026-10-07T20:49:00.251-07:00

Dawn Addams in THE £20,000 KISS Year: 1962 Rating: ***

Dawn Addams, best known as a Hammer starlet both sophisticated and exotic, vulnerable and nefarious, stars in a low-budget British theatrical b-movie THE £20,000 KISS that wound up on the television anthology EDGAR WALLACE MYSTERY THEATRE, and actually feels more like a small screen whodunnit, complete with the usual ending where a detective reveals the murder and motive as it plays out on the screen...

Otherwise a kind of battle of wits between two classy men: one a professional blackmailer in Anthony Newlands, married to Addams, who steals that titular smooch with wealthy barrister Michael Goodliffe...

Richard Thorp and Dawn Addams in THE £20,000 KISS

The best scenes involve the hotel room traipsing con-game involving surrogate fatale Mia Karam, taken out before the real nitty-gritty ramps up enough edge for what otherwise feels like a private-eye series pilot starring a rather bland and underwhelming Richard Thorp...

Too young and inexperienced for having more screen time than the lovely Dawn Addams, who's the most unpredictable and spontaneous... even making his character more worthwhile, while it lasts.

Dawn Addams in THE £20,000 KISS

Anthony Newlands in THE £20,000 KISS

Ellen McIntosh and Paul Whitsun-Jones in THE £20,000 KISS

Dawn Addams in THE £20,000 KISS

Ellen McIntosh and Paul Whitsun-Jones in THE £20,000 KISS

Dawn Addams in THE £20,000 KISS

Dawn Addams in THE £20,000 KISS with Richard Thorp

Alfred Burke and Michael Goodliffe in THE £20,000 KISS

Susan Denny and Michael Goodliffe in THE £20,000 KISS

Soong Ling in THE £20,000 KISS

Dawn Addams in THE £20,000 KISS

Dawn Addams in THE £20,000 KISS with Alfred Burke

Dawn Addams and Michael Goodliffe in THE £20,000 KISS

Michael Goodliffe in THE £20,000 KISS

MAUREEN CONNELL WITH MERVYN JOHNS IN 'ODE TO BARBARA'

2026-10-06T14:17:24.304-07:00

Maureen Connell in ODE TO BARBARA Year: 1961 Rating: ****

Another British b-crimer where lanky/intense PAYROLL and PRIZE OF ARMS actor Tom Bell plays the main antagonist's moody henchman, only here his job's pretty straightforward, keeping an eye on a bank-robber's spoiled gambling son (Ronald Hines, the backstabbing business partner in THE HI-JACKERS)... but there's a lot more going on in ECHO OF BARBARA than the usual early-1960's neo-noir...

Borrowing from the classic story of THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, it's a masquerading con-game as lovely, vulnerable, pouty, wispy, cigarette-smoking Maureen Connell (on her first day of seedy nightclub stripping) is hired by that desperately in-debt son to pretend being his father's long-lost lookalike daughter...

Maureen Connell and Mervyn Johns in ODE TO BARBARA

Enter first-billed Mervyn Johns after nearly thirty-minutes of anticipated exposition, a sad-eyed, furrowed-brow loser, fresh from prison and holed-up at a rural farm, refusing to dig up the loot he stole to get busted... that his crooked kid wants, paying the sultry yet earthy ingenue to help acquire...

With chief villain Paul Stassino igniting the kind of lethal 1930's gangster-cinema kingpin, ECHO OF BARBARA keeps the viewer simultaneously invested on the desperate genre-driven characters within the frantic blackmailing/find-the-money plot-line — particularly Johns' sad old man and Connell as the beautiful stranger, who, despite not being related, share more genuinely natural chemistry than most of Britain's bigger-budgeted troubled-family melodramas.

Maureen Connell and Ronald Hines in ODE TO BARBARA

Maureen Connell and Diana Potter in ODE TO BARBARA

Maureen Connell in ODE TO BARBARA

Diana Potter in ODE TO BARBARA

Maureen Connell in ODE TO BARBARA

Eve Eden in ODE TO BARBARA

Tom Bell in ODE TO BARBARA

Maureen Connell and Ronald Hines in ODE TO BARBARA

Maureen Connell in ODE TO BARBARA

From ODE TO BARBARA

Maureen Connell in ODE TO BARBARA

Maureen Connell and Mervyn Johns in ODE TO BARBARA with Ronald Hines

Maureen Connell in ODE TO BARBARA

Paul Stassino in ODE TO BARBARA with Ronald Hines & Tom Bell

David Gregory and Paul Stassino in ODE TO BARBARA

Tom Bell and Ronald Hines in ODE TO BARBARA

Tom Bell in ODE TO BARBARA

David Gregory Paul Stassino in ODE TO BARBARA

Maureen Connell and Paul Stassino in ODE TO BARBARA

Ronald Hines in ODE TO BARBARA

Tom Bell in ODE TO BARBARA

Maureen Connell in ODE TO BARBARA

Paul Stassino in ODE TO BARBARA

Maureen Connell in ODE TO BARBARA

Mervyn Johns and Ronald Hines in ODE TO BARBARA

Tom Bell and Mervyn Johns in ODE TO BARBARA

Maureen Connell in ODE TO BARBARA

Maureen Connell and Mervyn Johns in ODE TO BARBARA

MICHAEL CAINE IN 'SOLO FOR SPARROW' STARRING GLYN HOUSTON

2026-10-04T16:53:05.530-07:00

Michael Caine in SOLO FOR SPARROW Year: 1962 Rating: ***

Most of the early/mid 1960's crime b-movies from England that wound up on the television anthology EDGAR WALLACE MYSTERIES feels like their own stories with a beginning, middle and end while SOLO FOR SPARROW feels like a pilot for a rather unique kind of police detective...

Played by sturdily stocky British character-actor Glynn Houson, whose manliness allowed a few glimpses into semi leading man status, bringing a cute bartender chick on a stakeout for the rich owner of a jewelry store, robbed by a gang that includes Michael Boles, who could play both robbers and cops with equal offbeat intensity, and young no-name Michael Caine...

Michael Coles in SOLO FOR SPARROW

As usual, the opening entails the heist... actually a kidnapping of an old lady whose key opens and closes the jewelry store... whose death prompts Houston's SPARROW into thinking her new job description makes otherwise sophisticated owner (and strangely first-billed) Anthony Newlands suspect of ripping off his own till...

Not quite a gangster flick as potentially intriguing villains (from a stylized pool-hall's hustler Neil McCarthy to fatale-like beauty Nadja Regin) come and go, and not an altogether mystery since this culprit is obvious in Newlands' usual criminal casting, SOLO is a deliberately slow-paced study in what are the borderline crooked investigatory devices of our titular hero... not once ruffled, even when he himself is kidnapped: lacking suspense in both the character and the story, but a nice little programmer nonetheless.

Michael Caine in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Wanda Ventham in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Yvonne Buckingham in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Anthony Newlands and Glyn Houston in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Yvonne Buckingham and Glyn Houston in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Glyn Houston in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Neil McCarthy in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Glyn Houston and Neil McCarthy in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Neil McCarthy in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Glyn Houston in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Glyn Houston and Susan Maryott in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Murray Melvin and Glyn Houston in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Anthony Newlands in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Anthony Newlands and Nadja Regin in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Michael Coles and Anthony Newlands in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Michael Coles, Michael Caine and Glyn Houston in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Michael Caine and Michael Coles in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Jerry Stovin and Michael Coles in SOLO FOR SPARROW

Michael Caine in SOLO FOR SPARROW

KATHERINE WOODVILLE CLASSING UP 'CLUE OF THE NEW PIN'

2026-10-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

Katherine Woodville in CLUE OF THE NEW PIN Year: 1961 Rating: ***1/2

Katherine Woodville (here billed as Catherine Woodville) is one the most beautiful British actresses of all time, and, with full lips and reddish-dark hair, she also has the cool, laid-back aura like she knows everything...

Fitfully cast as a gorgeous jewelry-wearing model/actress in the Edgar Wallace episode CLUE OF THE NEW PIN, mostly taking place within an underground room in a rich man's manor, where his seemingly affable nephew Paul Daneman appears to be the most innocent, vulnerable...

Katherine Woodville and Paul Daneman in CLUE OF THE NEW PIN with James Villiers

Making the eventual turnout not only intriguing but suspenseful, with a few clever twists involving the titular pin, a locked door, Woodville being proposed to by both the nephew and television interviewer James Villiers (doing his usual effeminate sophisticated type): all investigated by Scotland Yard's Bernard Archard...

Meanwhile the characters (along with the audience) anticipate the turnout in one of many initially theatrical programmers that wound up on the EDGAR WALLACE MYSTERIES television anthology — and they're not all as sparsely satisfying.

Katherine Woodville and Paul Daneman in CLUE OF THE NEW PIN with James Villiers

Katherine Woodville (billed as Catherine Woodville) in CLUE OF THE NEW PIN

Katherine Woodville in CLUE OF THE NEW PIN

Katherine Woodville and James Villiers in CLUE OF THE NEW PIN

Katherine Woodville in CLUE OF THE NEW PIN with James Villiers

Katherine Woodville in CLUE OF THE NEW PIN

Clive Morton and Paul Daneman in CLUE OF THE NEW PIN

Katherine Woodville and Paul Daneman in CLUE OF THE NEW PIN

Paul Daneman in CLUE OF THE NEW PIN with Bernard Archard

Katherine Woodville and Paul Daneman in CLUE OF THE NEW PIN

Katherine Woodville's (almost 20 years later) on her final recorded role on EIGHT IS ENOUGH

Katherine Woodville in CLUE OF THE NEW PIN

SUSAN HAMPSHIRE IN 'THE VIOLENT ENEMY' STARRING TOM BELL

2026-10-02T00:35:00.000-07:00

Susan Hampshire in THE VIOLENT ENEMY Year: 1967 Rating: **1/2

Before infamously heckling Prince Philip while seated next to very nervous future knighted actors, sharp-faced dark-horse Tom Bell would often play unpredictably argumentative henchmen of the crime boss... a kind of villain's villain... so in one of his few starring roles, he seems more befitting one of several edgy side-characters...

Who are actually Irish performers... the plot involving the IRA breaking Bell's former iconic patriot Sean Rogan from a British prison: returned to Ireland where most of the expository-plotline takes place within a tight-knit tavern...

Ed Begley, Tom Bell and Susan Hampshire in THE VIOLENT ENEMY

And where genre director Don Sharp clashes dark interiors against lovely natural landscapes with creative camera angles... yet befitting more of a taut political thriller that THE VIOLENT ENEMY aspires for: built right into the edgy (and somewhat misleading) title...

Featuring American actor Ed Begley, faking an Irish accent as capably as British-born Bell and perfect girl Susan Hampshire... so instantly smitten with our scowling anti-hero, she's merely pretty wallpaper within a slow-burn, preachy melodrama set around a factory bombing that turns into a last-minute heist — while never quite embracing any of those literally explosive anticipated elements.

Tom Bell in THE VIOLENT ENEMY

Susan Hampshire in THE VIOLENT ENEMY

Tom Bell and Susan Hampshire in THE VIOLENT ENEMY

Susan Hampshire in THE VIOLENT ENEMY

Tom Bell in THE VIOLENT ENEMY

Tom Bell and Susan Hampshire in THE VIOLENT ENEMY

Susan Hampshire in THE VIOLENT ENEMY

Tom Bell and Susan Hampshire in THE VIOLENT ENEMY with Michael Standing

Susan Hampshire in THE VIOLENT ENEMY

Michael Standing, Ed Begley and Tom Bell in THE VIOLENT ENEMY

Susan Hampshire in THE VIOLENT ENEMY

Tom Bell and Susan Hampshire in THE VIOLENT ENEMY

ZENA WALKER WITH KENNETH COPE IN 'CHANGE PARTNERS'

2026-10-01T00:41:00.000-07:00

Zena Walker in CHANGE PARTNERS Year: 1965 Rating: ***1/2

Zena Walker is one of the most underrated British actresses from the 1960's, specializing in natural-looking good girls in kitchen sink crime films, like THE MARKED ONES, but in CHANGE PARTNERS she's anything but...

And in this hour-long programmer that became part of THE EDGAR WALLACE MYSTERIES, Zena plays the coolest and coldest, most calculating femme fatales around...

Zena Walker and Basil Henson in CHANGE PARTNERS

The plot is highly reminiscent of many noirs of the 1940's and 1950's, especially when she asks her smitten lover, who's the big time business partner of her husband, if he'll do anything for her, which always means, basically, kill my man: so that "we can" both be together, with his money...

As in this case it's indeed purely financial, and not a bad plan: luring both spouses... his mousy wife and her moody husband... into the same car where they'd die in the style of 1930's proto-noir BORDERTOWN (that would become THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT): death by carbine monoxide asphyxiation in a closed-door garage...

Kenneth Cope and Basil Henson in CHANGE PARTNERS

But the first of two terrific twists is that, the entire time, from their initial planning stages in a rural cabin, two young lowlife blackmailers are watching their every move...

Providing crime genre regular Kenneth Cope and girlfriend Pamela Ann Davy (the latter getting more important with time) strange peripheral roles, almost like they're audience members instead of characters: eventually changing the course of the seemingly perfect murders...