The Black Book aka Reign Of Terror (1949)
Robert Cummings,Richard Basehart,Richard Hart,Arlene Dahl,Arnold Moss
D-Anthony Mann

Robespierre (Basehart), a powerful figure in the French Revolution and the subsequent Reign of Terror, is desperately looking for his black book, a death list of those marked by him for the guillotine and a key to help him eventually emerge as the country's dictator. He hopes that his agents will recover it, but if it falls in to the wrong hands, it would mean his political ruin and death.

I love finding these unknown or forgotten little gems.This movie is like a costumed drama film noir-dark and gritty,claustraphobic, an action and suspense piece that doesn't let up. Characters that can't be trusted,women that can hold their own.

Robert Cummings plays Charles D'Aubigny, a man pretending to help Robespierre retrieve his death list but is really on the side of the opposition.Arnold Moss plays Fouche', head of the secret police who wants the list for his own purposes. They all have 24 hours to find it.Shadows and alleyways,hidden passageways and guillotines,its a great movie for a rainy Saturday afternoon. Highly recommended. 9 of 10 stars

Oh, good. I've never seen the beginning, but really liked it. I'm looking forward to your review, Ish.

I thought Between Two Worlds sounded familiar so I watched the trailer. I would remember it if I had seen it with that cast! John Garfield! Sydney Greenstreet! Eleanor Parker! (She's my current screen crush since I saw Detective Story last week.)

The movie I'm thinking of is Outward Bound (1930) with Leslie Howard and longtime screen crush Helen Chandler. Pretty good movie. I did not know it had been remade with such a great cast. I'll have to try to catch the remake on TCM eventually.

Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!(1966)
Bob Hope,Elke Sommer,Phyllis Diller,Marjorie Lord,Cesare Danova
D-George Marshall

The Divine D.D. (Sommer), a European actress known more for her bubble bath scenes than for her acting, decides she has had enough with bubble baths and wants to be taken seriously as an actress. So much so that she runs away during the middle of a scene while filming in Hollywood and winds up in Oregon. While she is staying in a hotel, the operator accidentally connects her with a real estate agent named Tom Meade (Hope). She asks Tom to bring her some food and when he does he suggests that she go to his cabin in the woods. She also asks him not to tell anyone where she is because she doesn't want to go back to Hollywood. Now Tom must keep the secret, especially from his wife (Lord)and from his suspicious housekeeper Millie (Diller).

Boy, did I pick the wrong movie.Bob Hope helps the irritating accented sexpot hide from the press while also keeping it a secret from his wife.Phyllis Diller the maid knows whats going on and we're subjected to an endless stream of double-entendres.I understand that part of Diller's schtick is that she is unattractive and in this movie her hair looks loke the after effects of an electricution. But why o why is Marjorie Lord wearing a dead muskrat on her head the entire picture? Yes big bouffant hair styles were in vogue during the mid-60s but I thought I saw a skier taking on the slope of her hair at some point.

One of those 60s sex comedies were they don't want to mention the word. And by the end everyone is chasing each other around and you expect someone in a gorilla suit to appear and join in on the fun. One of the films included in "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and how they got that way)" by Harry Medved and Randy Lowell.

3 of 10 stars

No matter how i try, it's a major effort to get through any of Bob's movies after '63 or so.

I've never been a huge fan of Bob Hope, though I don't actively dislike him either. I can say that I liked at least one of his later movies, Call Me Bwana, which features Anita Ekberg instead of Elke Sommer, as the foreign-accented blonde. Not that it was really any good, but I'll watch anything with Anita Ekberg in it: I think she was the most beautiful of all the famous blonde bombshells of the era. I like Elke Sommer too, so I will probably try to see Wrong Number one of these days.


Never heard of Between Two Worlds or Black Reign of Terror but they both sound intriguing. I'd like to do a John Garfield festival some time, as I've liked him in just about everything I've ever seen him in.

I find that I can't recall the rest of the film at the moment, so you're probably right.

It's unfortunate that apart from La Dolce Vita she never really made any great - and not even many very good - movies, as far as I know, anyway. Her incredible beauty was sadly under-appreciated, or at least under-used, by the film industry, IMO, both in Europe - with the one famous exception already noted - and in Hollywood.

I do have a copy of Screaming Mimi around here somewhere - one of the few Hollywood films where she got to play the lead, I believe. I've held off watching it because I'm undecided whether or not I want to read the Frederic Brown book it was based on first. There are still quite a few of her Hollywood B-movies and lesser known Euro stuff that I haven't seen, so who knows, maybe there are some hidden gems in her filmography I haven't heard about.