utgard14

Future porn star Janine Lindemulder is on the run from a motorcyclist assassin in this low effort actioner made by Italians in Florida. The Italians aren't from Florida. They are from Italy but the movie was shot in Florida for some reason. This is pretty boring cliched stuff that I have to imagine viewers today will only want to see for one of three reasons:

1: A pre-porn and pre-plastic surgery Janine Lindemulder. Her acting is atrocious, not that many will care. It probably goes without saying she's naked in this. A lot. But if seeing her naked is your kick, you probably have hundreds of better options online for that.

2: Hollywood legend Ernest Borgnine in the twilight of his career. Things never got Mickey Rooney bad for him but stuff like this is circling the drain.

3: Linda Blair. This is how I came across the movie. She did a number of fun exploitation and horror pictures in the 80s. Even did a comedy or two that wasn't horrendous. But at this point she was showing up in movies with high billing and doing very little, usually dressed like a church secretary.

I'm not going to tell you not to watch it. If you're here reading about a movie this little talked about you probably have either already watched it or decided to. Keep expectations low. One final thing: the version I watched of this on Tubi has obviously not been remastered (as if), but the audio has distracting noises throughout that sometimes sound like wind and other times sound like someone is welding something near the filming location.

Monogram cheapie about the theft of the titular diamond during a dark and stormy night in an old dark house. A very familiar setting, even more so for the period in which this film came out. It's based on a creaky 19th century novel by Wilkie Collins. David Manners stars, playing one of the many drab parts he played during a short career that left a stronger legacy than his talent warranted. Elspeth Dudgeon of "The Old Dark House" and "Sh! The Octopus" fame is the closest thing the film has to a scene stealer, playing a feisty old housekeeper. The rest of the cast is full of familiar if unremarkable character actors. This is not an exciting movie. It plods along slowly throughout its thankfully short runtime. Still, it's an inoffensive use of an hour that will keep the kids out of the streets.

Universal adaptation of Charles Dickens' unfinished novel. It's not a horror film but Universal usually lumps it in with them. It does feature some actors from their horror pictures as well as some of the same ambience. Claude Rains stars and he's terrific as always. Great turn from Zeffie Tilbury as the crazy lady running the opium den. Douglass Montgomery's brownface makeup is distracting. I'm also not sure why he's made up that way while his character's sister (Valerie Hobson in a largely pointless role) is not. Perhaps to make the later plot twist less obvious. If that was the case, I doubt it worked on anyone. All in all, this is a decent picture that fans of Rains or the period's horror thrillers should enjoy. I'm surprised no one thought to throw in a guy in a gorilla costume, though.