Briefs for February 18-19, 2018

Most of my movie watching to clear up space on the DVR recently has been stuff that's out of print on DVD. A month ago, there was a DirecTV free preview of the Starz/Encore channels, which was where I watched The Shooting that I reviewed not long ago. I had recorded another movie, An American Werewolf in London to do a review on that. I didn't notice until I went to watch it this morning, however, that I had misfigured when the free preview ended, and this showing was after it. Crap.

Anyhow, I'll give brief mention to Gunman in the Streets. This is an odd little movie in that it was made in France with Dane Clark and a bunch of French actors who could speak English. I've mentioned a similar thing that happened in the UK of movies being made there with one American star and a bunch of British actors with the presence of the American presumably being to make it easier to get distribution in America. I didn't realize it had been done in France, too. But that provenance is probably why it's not on DVD. It's too bad Gunman in the Streets isn't very good. And as I was watching, I had the distinct feeling I had seen it before. I probably had, and that lack of memorableness was why I didn't find the movie very good.

There was also The Falcon and the Coeds. Tom Conway plays the Falcon, this time investigating a death at a private girls' school. It's officially heart disease, but the Falcon's investigation gets it changed first to suicide and then to murder. Fans of the Falcon movies will probably like it, although they'll probably already have seen it. The credits say that a young Dorothy Malone plays one of the students, but I didn't notice her. I probably just wasn't paying close enough attention to look for her.

Lassie Lou Ahern died last week aged 97. She was a baby star at the end of the silent era, appearing in some of the Our Gang shorts as well as the silent version of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Her elder sister Peggy was also an actress, and after leaving films the two did a stage show together. Peggy also lived to be very elderly, dying in 2012 at the age of 95.