Guilty pleasures

Obvious (and cheap) attempt to cash in on the misplaced mysticism of "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves." Most of it's pretty bad, but (in a dual role) David Warner is actually pretty funny as the Rickman/Nottingham-like Lord Vultare, while he makes an enchantingly handsome wizard-mentor. (Check out this movie if you don't think he'd have made a great Dumbledore.) The Mystery Science Theatre version, by contrast, gets 4 stars ... showing reverence for David Warner by, unfortunately, cutting some of his funniest Vultare lines.

Lots of people (including its stars) have made this out to be some kind of turkey, but with such low expectations, I really enjoyed it. Much better than most of the stuff that passes for humor nowadays, and the principal actors (Robert Newton, Cyril Cusack, Stewart Granger, David Niven) make it highly watchable. Cyril Cusack is adorable!

One of my favorite guilty pleasures. I first saw this movie because Robert Newton was in it (and barely recognized him from Treasure Island, the only other movie I'd seen him in back then besides Oliver Twist), then read the novel--twice. The movie pales in comparison. But it did make me a fan of Emlyn Williams. The grotesquely made-up Charles Laughton dominates the picture as the pompous, overbearing Squire Pengallan (a character invented for the movie), yet Williams is the one who steals the show as the "dirty little blackguard" Harry. It's worth watching again and again just to see him pitted against Robert Newton as the romantic hero.

Leapin' lepuses! Rabbits grow to enormous size and take their revenge! Bad cinematography includes drastic difference in screen resolution between the placidly munching bunnies and the people pretending to be terrified of them. Starring DeForest Kelley! Love the title.

Once you get past the absurd premise ("hard-partying English playboy" goes to heaven and is granted his wish of playing a practical joke on three pairs of friends he left behind), this is kind of a cute movie, and Emlyn Williams (as the playboy, in a trio of flashbacks--in fact, he's really the main character and should have had higher billing) plays a likable character for a change (even rarer, he sings, dances, and speaks French). The last vignette with Eve Arden is the best.