The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on December 6, 2017

A Long Time Till Dawn is usually able to keep disbelief completely suspended. It’s a television play and Rod Serling’s teleplay is more ambitious than the budget or the constraints of the medium. Most of the sets are interiors and fine–a diner, a living room, a bedroom. They can e   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on December 5, 2017

Unfortunately, most of A Ghost Walks is missing. What remains–some audio, a couple stills–isn’t really enough to sustain the narrative. After the cliffhanger resolution (not too noisy and apparently not injurious to Joan Woodbury), there’s some treading water while cops Kane Richmond and Joe Devlin   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on December 4, 2017

Taken for a Ride’s opening cliffhanger resolution isn’t particularly exciting–in fact, giving so much information about what’s going on outside the situation to resolve the cliffhanger makes it all procedural, instead of suspenseful–but it still almost leads to a good shootout. Joan Woodbury and Sy   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on December 3, 2017

The Blazing Trap opens with a lengthy lead-in to the cliffhanger resolve. Even though the resolve is pretty easy, it’s kind of cool how much context Brenda Starr gives its resolution. It doesn’t feel like a quick wrap up, it feels like a part of the story. After it’s over,...   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on December 2, 2017

Brenda Starr, Reporter is all action. Sure, there’s some scenes of lead Joan Woodbury sitting at her desk, but she’s just waiting to hear about more action. The chapter starts with a building on fire. Woodbury and her photographer, Syd Saylor, drive out from the newspaper office, racing to get...   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on December 1, 2017

The Defender is exquisite. It’s a two-part courtroom drama from “Studio One,” so Reginald Rose’s teleplay has some major constraints. There’s budget, there’s content, there’s plotting, there’s pacing. Not to mention it’s two separate broadcasts. No matter how well the two parts of The Defender sit   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on December 1, 2017

While The Beguiled is a thriller, the film keeps the thrills exceptionally grounded. The film’s set during the Civil War, with wounded Yankee sniper Clint Eastwood taking refuge at a girls school in Confederate territory. The school is quite literally set aside from the war. The war is outside the   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on November 29, 2017

Doin’ Time in Times Square is forty minutes of footage Ahearn shot out of his Times Square apartment building’s window. Shot over three years, Ahearn cuts the street scenes with home movie footage. Life inside the apartment. Ahearn’s adorable family growing, holidays, parties, sitcoms. Meanwhile, o   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on November 27, 2017

In June 1941, right before turning nineteen years old, Eleanor Parker signed on as a contract player at Warner Bros. She had just finished a year at the Pasadena Playhouse. Parker started acting in high school and had been dodging studio screen tests since she was fifteen; she wanted to...   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on November 26, 2017

About seventy percent of Adventures of Captain Marvel is narratively useless. Nothing occurring in chapters two through ten has an effect on how the story actually turns out. The serial has a great first chapter involving a tomb robbing archeological expedition in Thailand. Radio journalist Frank C   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on November 25, 2017

The title, The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge, doesn’t really refer to anything in the film itself. The Street Fighter is Sonny Chiba. He’s gone for psychotic killer karate man (from the first film, Last Revenge is the third) to sauve, romantic ladies man. Complete with a secret room to put...   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on November 25, 2017

Sister Street Fighter should be campy. With the constant horns in Kikuchi Shunsuke’s score, lead Shiomi Etsuko’s colorful outfit, villain Amatsu Bin doing an Elvis impersonation, the countless and intentionally weird martial arts villains… it ought to be campy. But it’s not, because somehow Sister   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on November 24, 2017

If Spider-Man: Homecoming isn’t the best film with six credited screenwriters, it’s got to be near the top. Additionally, the film’s got director (and one the Sinister Six–wokka wokka–screenwriters) Watts, who kind of manually binds the film together scene by scene. There’s so much different stuff   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on November 23, 2017

Return of the Street Fighter almost stages a third act rally. It comes so close, then it doesn’t. After a string of boring fight scenes, director Ozawa finally gets in a couple good ones. Lead Sonny Chiba against one adversary, instead of a half dozen, two dozen, or four dozen....   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on November 22, 2017

Captain Marvel’s Secret opens with yet another lackluster cliffhanger resolve. No reason to change it up at the end, apparently. The chapter has a lot to do in sixteen minutes. It’s got to reveal the evil Scorpion’s identity, stop the Scorpion’s evil plan, and maybe do something regarding Frank Cog   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on November 22, 2017

Sentence of Death unfolds gradually. The action mostly follows Betsy Palmer, playing a naughty blue blood who the tabloids love to cover. She’s slumming it and having a nice private dinner at a drug store. She’s there when someone holds it up and kills the owner. Enter cops Gene Lyons...   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on November 21, 2017

Valley of Death is the penultimate chapter of Adventures of Captain Marvel. It’s in a rush to finish. The cliffhanger resolution is boring, though leads to some decent effects shots. The cast ends up in a hotel somewhere, planning to return to Thailand and the tombs from the first chapter....   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on November 20, 2017

There’s nothing nice to say about Doom Ship’s opening cliffhanger resolution other than it’s short and leads into an energetic fight scene for Frank Coghlan Jr. More than ever, Coghlan’s got the wrong timing for turning into Tom Tyler’s Captain Marvel this chapter. Unlike the times when Coghlan’s b   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on November 20, 2017

Two-Faced Woman is the story of a successful New York magazine editor, played by Melvyn Douglas, who marries his ski instructor (Greta Garbo) while on vacation. It’s a whirlwind courtship, with one condition of the marriage (for Garbo) being Douglas is giving up New York. Turns out he’s not and...   read more

The Stop Button Posted by Andrew Wickliffe on November 19, 2017

Dead Man’s Trap is, I guess, a bridging chapter. It depends on what’s next. Otherwise it’s a treading water chapter. It picks up from the previous chapter’s “cliffhanger” (quotations because it’s more of a “beware the cliff 150 meters away” than anything else) and gives George Pembroke quite a bit   read more