Ed Johnson

Hot on the heels of Safari came another Columbia-released, African-filmed adventure, Beyond Mombassa. Matt Campbell (Cornel Wilde) arrives in Kenya on a double quest. He hopes to locate a valuable uranium mine, and also to learn the "whos, whats and whys" of his brother's murder. Joing Campbell's safari are missionary Ralph Hoyt (Leo Genn) and Hoyt's niece Ann Wilson (Donna Reed). After several attempts are made on Campbell's life, he comes to the conclusion that one of his travelling companions was responsible for his brother's death. Sure enough, the villain has not only dispatched Campbell's brother, but has also arranged the evidence so as to place the blame on a legendary tribe of "leopard men". As for why he does it, it is best to see Beyond Mombassa for further details. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Canadian director Mike Hoolboom stoops to new levels of depravity and controversy in this anthology of funky sexual exploits. The four segments are filmed in black-and-white and have no dialogue, presumably to conjure the silent film era. It seems doubtful that Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin would have attempted a film like "Precious," which features a young woman masturbating against a gravestone. The second part is called "Scum" and depicts the experiments of a randy young couple. The props involved in these displays include cauliflower, a bicycle, and their own feces. In "Kisses," two men go after each other in an extended S & M session involving whips and razors. And then there's the last part, "Sh*teater," which really needs no further elaboration. ~ John Voorhees, All Movie Guide

Just as Bob Hope's My Favorite Blonde (1942) was a takeoff on Alfred Hitchcock, Hope's My Favorite Brunette was a lampoon of the noirish "hard-boiled detective" school popularized by Raymond Chandler. Awaiting execution on death row, Hope tells the gathered reporters how he got into his present predicament. It seems that Hope was once a baby photographer, his office adjacent to the one leased by a private detective (played in an amusing unbilled cameo by Alan Ladd). While hanging around the p.i.'s office, Hope is mistaken for the detective by beautiful client Dorothy Lamour. She hires Hope to search for her missing uncle, and also entrusts him with a valuable map. Hope's diligent (if inept) sleuthing takes him to a shady rest sanitarium, where he runs afoul of lamebrained henchman Lon Chaney, Jr. and sinister, knife-throwing Peter Lorre. Both are in the employ of attorney Charles Dingle, who is responsible for the disappearance of Lamour's uncle. Escaping the sanitarium with Lamour in tow, Hope follows the trail of evidence to noted geologist Reginald Denny. The geologist is murdered, and Hope is accused of the crime. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An experimental feature from Canadian avant-garde filmmaker Mike Hoolboom, Panic Bodies concerns itself with death and the fragility of the human body, particularly in the wake of the AIDS pandemic. Comprised of six segments which could each be viewed as separate short films, the individual stories use a variety of techniques and approaches (montage, found and manipulated footage, blackout humor, sexual images, spiritual exploration) to explore our hopes and fears about disease and dying. Panic Bodies was shown at the 1999 San Francisco Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A college student's passion for swinging music leads him to found his own band. When he starts spending more time playing music than studying, his father, a prominent hotelier, steps in and sends the lad to a dude ranch in Arizona. Undeterred, the boy brings the band with him. Once there, he encounters a pretty girl. Unfortunately, her father owns a rival hotel chain. Fortunately, after much singing, dancing and misunderstanding, the two young people finally manage to fall in love. Though only an hour long, the film is packed with 16 popular songs. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

American mousetrap salesmen Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy journey to Switzerland, reasoning that where there's cheese, there's mice. When they innocently try to pay their dinner bill with phony money, Stan and Ollie are put to work in the kitchen of the Alpen Hotel. Their enforced stay coincides with the visit of famed composer Walter Woolf King, who has come to Switzerland to soak up "local color." He also hopes to write an operetta that will succeed on its own merits, without the lovely voice of his lovely actress wife Della Lynd winning over the audience. But Lynd is determined to star in King's latest opus, and to that end she finagles Stan and Ollie into getting her a job as a hotel chambermaid. As the plot rolls along its merry way, Ollie labors under the misapprehension that Lynd is in love with him. Swiss Miss is, on the whole, one of Laurel and Hardy's weaker feature films, with far too much emphasis on the romantic leads and way too many forgettable songs ("Crick Crick Crick Here the Cricket" is a particular low point). But the team's individual scenes save the show, even though Stan Laurel, who'd been ill during production, looks like he's about to fall asleep at any moment. Best bits: Stan hoodwinking a St. Bernard out of a cask of brandy; Ollie serenading Lynd while Stan accompanies him on tube; and the legendary sequence, immortalized by film critic James Agee, wherein Stan and Ollie try to transport a piano across a rope bridge high above an alpine chasm--only to confront a gorilla! One of the screenwriters of Swiss Miss was Jean Negulesco, later the director of such memorable films as Mask of Dmitrios, Three Strangers, Titanic and How to Marry a Millionaire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A group of villains previously defeated by the A-Team pool their savings and hire professional assassin Major Kyle (Ed Lauter) to get rid of the Team once and for all. Kyle's plan is to play upon the well-known weaknesses of the various team members in order to kidnap them one by one--and then to kill them slowly and painfully, while Team leader Hannibal (George Peppard) is forced to watch. Tricia O'Neill repeats her portrayal of Dr. Maggie Sullivan, a character introduced in the first-season A-Team episode "Bad Day at Black Rock". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a truck driver begins wooing a young woman who still lives with her father who constantly brags how he, not the town mayor, was responsible for catching a regiment of Germans during WW I. Unfortunately, no one in town takes him seriously. Later the daughter meets a German immigrant who confirms her father's claim. She then convinces her boy friend to use this information to blackmail the mayor into giving him a new truck and some extra amenities lest he tell the truth. The conniving woman then tells the mayor's opponents. Rather than deal with the upcoming scandal, the mayor commits suicide. The trucker then gets into trouble and the corrupt politicians end up imprisoned. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide