An American western directed by John English, starring Gene Autry.
A singing cowboy is tricked into thinking that he has killed a man who was about to report an insect problem. The man who is really the killer wants the insect problem to continue so that his lumber operation can harvest the trees that the insects kill. The singing cowboy is found innocent in court and embarks on a job to spray poison to kill the insects while the lumber baron gets another plane and sprays another poison. It's too complicated.
The complex and convoluted plot was filled with characters that were barely identifiable. The poor quality video made matching faces with names even more difficult. The lumber guy has a mustache and a black hat so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say "That's the fuckin' badguy!" and Gene Autry (poison spraying goodguy) wears an ornately embroidered cowboy shirt. Because of how poor the communication was, I'm rating this bad. Only watch it if you want to spend the whole time trying to figure out who is who and what they are doing.
An American western directed by Robert N. Bradbury, starring John Wayne and George Gabby Hayes.
A singing cowboy encounters a shot sheriff and a young woman who has just robbed a stage coach in the desert. He lends the woman his horse and leaves the sheriff for dead, sneaking aboard the stagecoach against the will of it's drivers who want to kill him. In town, he finds that there is a dispute over water and land rights involving a corrupt businessman.
According to Wikipedia, this was the first pairing of John Wayne with Gabby and featured a soon to be abandoned dubbed singing theme because Wayne was not a singer. The plot and characters were clearly presented and it kept my attention through the whole 52 minutes. The audio and video were decent, given the early production date. There were some instances of breaking the 180 degree rule, with characters moving one way, cut, they're moving the other direction. The most notable was when the male and female leads were leading their shared horse to the barn. The title sounds like it could be a Rhapsody of Fire song. Overall, it was not too bad, but definitely not good. I rate it tolerable.
A Japanese Animerama animation directed by Osamu Tezuka and Eiichi Yamamoto.
A team of scientists from the future transport their consciousness into the bodies of historical figures in ancient Egypt.
This is the second film in the Animerama series, following A Thousand and One Nights (1969). It was a little bit wierder and made a little less sense than the first one. The plot was not as good and there were too many characters that were not developed well enough. The animation style was mostly cartoon, with live action mixed in the beginning and end. There were some odd WTF moments like the kabuki portrayal of Ceasar's death scene. There was just as much cartoon nudity, but it didn't seem to be as effective as ATAON. There was even closer depictions of intercourse, with cartoon bodies rubbing together, but to no avail. You just can't top something like that. There were more crude jokes in the dialogue, which I did appreciate. I rate it good because it was unique and stylish and all that, but nowhere near as good as the previous year's adventures with Aladdin.
An American western directed by Joseph Kane, starring Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette and Kay Hughes.
A Texas ranger shows up with his team to help the military protect a supply train. He finds that he is in direct competition with a military leader who is unwilling to accept help and a group of indians who are counting on one of the military men to leave the supplies unguarded.
I noticed the silent film style speeded up fight scenes and the comic relief characters most when I watched this. The plot was clearly communicated and characters identifiable. They fit into standard western roles, but that seemed to work out just fine. The black and white video was a little bit blurry/grainy and the audio was primitive, but I saw and heard everything that was going on. The pacing was very quick all the way through and barely slowed down at all. The humorous elements contained an indian chasing a ranger to scalp him and a weathered old trail hand who used snuff to cause others to sneeze. I'm rating this o.k. because I've seen much better and much worse.
A Japanese animation directed by Eiichi Yamamoto.
A young water seller in Baghdad falls in love with a slave woman in a market. When he can't pay for her, a dust storm disrupts the procedings and he steals the woman, setting off a seemingly endless chain of events.
Such style! Being the first X rated cartoon ever made and Japanese, I had a feeling that it would be good. The plot was epic and characters memorable. The pacing kept time with events, slowing down and speeding up accordingly. The animation did not look like stereotypical anime because that style was not yet developed in 1969. It looked more like American animation styles, with some unique twists thrown in. Who would think of using live action shots in the middle of a cartoon? So unique! The soundtrack was mostly psychedelic rock, which I liked and found fitting for the time period. This is about as lewd and crude as Fritz the Cat. Animated boobs and butts cannot be counted, but there are no depictions of genitalia or penetration. All of the sex is implied, but there is a rape scene. Aladdin is seen smoking a cigar and getting drunk and there is a nobleman who gets high on his own handmade designer drugs. This noble's son eats something that he calls cordial as an aphrodisiac that makes him blow orange smoke from his nose. Some of the more violent scenes were a torture scene with badly timed screams and a fight between a triclops and a roc. I'm rating this best. It is a must see!
An American western directed by Harry L. Fraser, starring John Wayne and George Gabby Hayes.
A cowboy finds several men dead in a bar, including the man whom he was sent there to meet. The outlaw responsible alerts the sheriff so that he will find the innocent cowboy among this destruction. The dead bar owner's daughter helps the cowboy to escape and he helps her to defeat the outlaws who killed her father.
I did not recognize Gabby when he wasn't playing the old sidekick role. At first, I thought the film would be silent because of the primitive video and speeded up horse riding, but it turned out to be a talkie. Throughout the duration, this silent film visual style could be seen. The pacing was fast to fit a complex plot into 52 minutes, but the plot and characters were clearly presented. I'm not spoiling the ending, but in the last shot, the cowboy and bar owner's daughter turn away from the camera with arms around eachother instead of kissing. A kiss would have required tall Mr. Wayne to bend down quite a bit to level his face with Alberta Vaughn's. I rate it adequate. It was pretty good, but not a keeper.
An American western directed by Tim Whelan, starring Randolph Scott and Forrest Tucker.
A secret agent stages a train robbery to join an outlaw gang and with the help of local law enforcement, defeats them.
This was boring and desultory. The pacing was really slow and the plot dragged through the hour and 25 minute duration. The fake train robbery, romantic interest and supposed outlaw's cooperation with local authorities made the plot hard to follow and I feel that it was not clearly communicated. A few of the main characters were easily identifiable, but everyone else was just a big jumble of people. The audio and video were as I would expect from 1955, basically average. The style reminded me of better westerns made around that time like Bells of San Angelo, Rio Bravo and El Dorado. I'm rating this poor because They could have done better and I didn't like it.
