Meet
Sexton Blake (1945) - 5.0
Sexton Blake was another one of those fictional British detectives that was very popular at home but never made the jump to the Americas. He was a character in books, magazines, comics, TV, radio and film. He made his first appearance in a magazine story in 1893 and is still going today. Like America's Nick Carter who also began in the late 1800's he has had a number of authors and gone through various incarnations to keep him up to date. Early on he was a Sherlock Holmes type (even to living on Baker Street) but later became more of an action hero. In 2009 he took on Fu Manchu in a book and over the years had various enemies including another Yellow Peril nemesis named Prince Wu Ling. There were a number of Sexton Blake silent movies and six talkies. Three during the thirties and two in the 1940's and one in the 50's. The 50's one was a Hammer production titled Murder at Site 3 with Barbara Shelley and Geoffrey Toone. I have never heard of it but it goes on my To See list. Because you know, Barbara Shelley.
This felt quite generic - the handsome gentleman detective who seems to be financially independent with his assistant solve crimes often using Scotland Yard as their servants. The video I watched off of YouTube is not the best quality and in the many night scenes I felt like I was stumbling around in the dark. Sexton is played by David Farrar who was an A actor for many years in period adventure films - The 300 Spartans, Solomon and Sheba, The Golden Horde - and he is fine. His assistant is Tinker (John Varley) straight out of the books. Farrar coincidentally was in an earlier Sexton Blake film Sexton Blake and the Hooded Terror (1938) but not as the hero and he made another one later in this same year.
He and Tinker get involved in an espionage case in which the Germans are trying to steal a formula that can make planes lighter. In an only in a movie bit - the formula is hidden in a photograph in which a ring can reveal it. The ring ends up on a severed hand in the pocket of a dead man who falls from a bridge onto a barge. Enemy agents are after both and so is Sexton and company. The Free French also get involved in the form of a lovely lady (Magda Kun). Other than Farrar the rest of the cast are unknown to me probably signifying where the film ranks. It is ok and since two others are up on YouTube I will likely watch those as well. Just because.
The Echo Murders (1945) - 5.0
Sexton Blake returns to once again fight villainy and the damn Nazis. This is a step above the previous Blake film, Meet Saxton Blake. Faster moving with a solid amount of intrigue and action and a mastermind that I didn't even remotely guess at. Of course, the video was so blanched out at times that it was difficult to even know who was who. I do wish that people who uploaded films to YouTube would put up bigger clearer files. What is the point of putting up a crappy copy if you can do better. My complaint for the day.
Blake receives an audio tube from a wealthy man who owns a tin mine on the coastline saying that he feels endangered. He is. Two minutes after sending off the tube, he is murdered at his desk. Someone had been trying to persuade him to sell the mine and even planting bombs in the mines. But no one understands why - the tin is nearly all mined out and not worth the price being offered. Not worth it to most but worth it to the Germans who are planning an invasion of England using a cave below the mine on the beach as an entry point. This being 1945 it seems a bit late for that. Other murders follow, Blake keeps walking into traps and then getting lucky and England is saved. Thank you Sexton Blake. A nice copy of this would no doubt improve it.
Sexton Blake and the Hooded Terror (1936) - 5.5
I downloaded a book of Blake Sexton's tales of his greatest villains and read a bit of The Brotherhood of the Yellow Beetle, a version of their Fu Manchu named Prince Wu Ling published as best as I can tell in 1913. It was surprisingly decent and as pulpy as pulp gets with a secret organization intent on ruling the world and failure met with the sting of a yellow beetle that is instant death.
I mention that because this one is much closer to pulp than the two films made in the 1940s. There were three filmed in the 1930s starring George Curzon as Blake. This was the third of them and I am not sure if the other two are in existence. This too has a secret gang called the Black Quorum that has tentacles all over the world. At their meetings they all wear black robes with a snake insignia sewn on and black pointy hoods. Which seems a bit silly as they all know each other and take off their hoods at the end of the meeting. I guess it just feels cool being all hooded. You might ask our KKK if that is true. Their diabolical leader is Michael Larron, a famous stamp collector of all things and played by the great English villain Tod Slaughter (Sweeny Todd).
I hope Sexton is smarter in his other adventures than he is in this one. He botches the case up all along till the end and even then he is lucky. Beginning in Hong Kong a friend of Blake's Granite Grant played by future Sexton Blake David Farrar has discovered that the Black Quorum will meet in England and he plans to go to England to tell Blake. But is stabbed before doing so and so gives the job to a friend. The friend arrives in England and phones Blake to tell him that he is coming. Great. Blake goes to a public place, sees his old friend Julie (Greta Gynt) who is a French agent in the Secret Service and blurts this out in his loud voice. Needless to say, the person is killed by a blow pipe and leaves only a code. And idiot that he is, Blake never realizes that he got the man killed. Another time he has once again walked into a trap and while tied up he sees his assistant Tinker on a video camera in front of the house and keeps yelling at him to help. He can't hear you. Sadly, Tinker and Julie do most of the work and end up in a room where huge poisonous snakes are crawling in. I hope the book is better. (I read one story and it was good pulpy fun).
Sexton Blake was another one of those fictional British detectives that was very popular at home but never made the jump to the Americas. He was a character in books, magazines, comics, TV, radio and film. He made his first appearance in a magazine story in 1893 and is still going today. Like America's Nick Carter who also began in the late 1800's he has had a number of authors and gone through various incarnations to keep him up to date. Early on he was a Sherlock Holmes type (even to living on Baker Street) but later became more of an action hero. In 2009 he took on Fu Manchu in a book and over the years had various enemies including another Yellow Peril nemesis named Prince Wu Ling. There were a number of Sexton Blake silent movies and six talkies. Three during the thirties and two in the 1940's and one in the 50's. The 50's one was a Hammer production titled Murder at Site 3 with Barbara Shelley and Geoffrey Toone. I have never heard of it but it goes on my To See list. Because you know, Barbara Shelley.
This felt quite generic - the handsome gentleman detective who seems to be financially independent with his assistant solve crimes often using Scotland Yard as their servants. The video I watched off of YouTube is not the best quality and in the many night scenes I felt like I was stumbling around in the dark. Sexton is played by David Farrar who was an A actor for many years in period adventure films - The 300 Spartans, Solomon and Sheba, The Golden Horde - and he is fine. His assistant is Tinker (John Varley) straight out of the books. Farrar coincidentally was in an earlier Sexton Blake film Sexton Blake and the Hooded Terror (1938) but not as the hero and he made another one later in this same year.
He and Tinker get involved in an espionage case in which the Germans are trying to steal a formula that can make planes lighter. In an only in a movie bit - the formula is hidden in a photograph in which a ring can reveal it. The ring ends up on a severed hand in the pocket of a dead man who falls from a bridge onto a barge. Enemy agents are after both and so is Sexton and company. The Free French also get involved in the form of a lovely lady (Magda Kun). Other than Farrar the rest of the cast are unknown to me probably signifying where the film ranks. It is ok and since two others are up on YouTube I will likely watch those as well. Just because.
The Echo Murders (1945) - 5.0
Sexton Blake returns to once again fight villainy and the damn Nazis. This is a step above the previous Blake film, Meet Saxton Blake. Faster moving with a solid amount of intrigue and action and a mastermind that I didn't even remotely guess at. Of course, the video was so blanched out at times that it was difficult to even know who was who. I do wish that people who uploaded films to YouTube would put up bigger clearer files. What is the point of putting up a crappy copy if you can do better. My complaint for the day.
Blake receives an audio tube from a wealthy man who owns a tin mine on the coastline saying that he feels endangered. He is. Two minutes after sending off the tube, he is murdered at his desk. Someone had been trying to persuade him to sell the mine and even planting bombs in the mines. But no one understands why - the tin is nearly all mined out and not worth the price being offered. Not worth it to most but worth it to the Germans who are planning an invasion of England using a cave below the mine on the beach as an entry point. This being 1945 it seems a bit late for that. Other murders follow, Blake keeps walking into traps and then getting lucky and England is saved. Thank you Sexton Blake. A nice copy of this would no doubt improve it.
Sexton Blake and the Hooded Terror (1936) - 5.5
I downloaded a book of Blake Sexton's tales of his greatest villains and read a bit of The Brotherhood of the Yellow Beetle, a version of their Fu Manchu named Prince Wu Ling published as best as I can tell in 1913. It was surprisingly decent and as pulpy as pulp gets with a secret organization intent on ruling the world and failure met with the sting of a yellow beetle that is instant death.
I mention that because this one is much closer to pulp than the two films made in the 1940s. There were three filmed in the 1930s starring George Curzon as Blake. This was the third of them and I am not sure if the other two are in existence. This too has a secret gang called the Black Quorum that has tentacles all over the world. At their meetings they all wear black robes with a snake insignia sewn on and black pointy hoods. Which seems a bit silly as they all know each other and take off their hoods at the end of the meeting. I guess it just feels cool being all hooded. You might ask our KKK if that is true. Their diabolical leader is Michael Larron, a famous stamp collector of all things and played by the great English villain Tod Slaughter (Sweeny Todd).
I hope Sexton is smarter in his other adventures than he is in this one. He botches the case up all along till the end and even then he is lucky. Beginning in Hong Kong a friend of Blake's Granite Grant played by future Sexton Blake David Farrar has discovered that the Black Quorum will meet in England and he plans to go to England to tell Blake. But is stabbed before doing so and so gives the job to a friend. The friend arrives in England and phones Blake to tell him that he is coming. Great. Blake goes to a public place, sees his old friend Julie (Greta Gynt) who is a French agent in the Secret Service and blurts this out in his loud voice. Needless to say, the person is killed by a blow pipe and leaves only a code. And idiot that he is, Blake never realizes that he got the man killed. Another time he has once again walked into a trap and while tied up he sees his assistant Tinker on a video camera in front of the house and keeps yelling at him to help. He can't hear you. Sadly, Tinker and Julie do most of the work and end up in a room where huge poisonous snakes are crawling in. I hope the book is better. (I read one story and it was good pulpy fun).