Will the black-gloved killer face the music?

The Black Glove (aka "Face the Music") (1954)
Starring: Alex Nicol, Eleanor Summerfield, John Salew, Ann Hanslip, and Paul Carpenter
Director: Terence Fisher
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

An American band leader on a European tour (Nicol) becomes a murder suspect after he is the last known person to see a murder victim (Hanslip) alive. Using a mysterious bootleg recording as his only clue, he sets out to find the murderer.

While spooky black-gloved hands in movies have become associated mostly with Italian murder mysteries, they were presaging villainy and mayhem in films from all nations as early as the 1920s. The association with Italians come to a large degree from their persistent overuse by Dario Argento, but they are on display here both in the American market title and during the murder sequences in a British film.

Although, from a story perspective, the film isn't unlike something that might have been created by Argento, as its full of characters behaving oddly and downright stupidly because the plot dictates it. And the plot is loose to say the least, held together mostly by coincidences.

However, unlike the Argento films that post-date this one by more than a decade, this film is blessed by the superior direction of Terence Fisher. Once again, Fisher takes a modest creation and deploys all its parts in a manner so efficient that he so smooths over all the weaknesses so as to make them almost irrelevant.

Between eliciting a strong performance from lead Alex Nicol and the way he makes sure that the film keeps moving at a lightning-fast clip, you hardly have time to notice the film's shortcomings. Heck, Fisher keeps it moving so fast that even the musical numbers, which in many similar films bring things to a stand-still instead of driving them forward.

"The Black Glove" is another one of the nearly forgotten couple dozen black-and-white crime dramas that Hammer Films produced during the 1950s and 1960s in collaboration with American production companies, first with independent producer Robert Lippert and later Columbia Pictures. Like almost every film Fisher helmed, it is well worth a look.

'The Screaming Skull' is a failed thriller

The Screaming Skull (1958)
Starring: John Hudson and Peggy Webber
Director: Alex Nicol
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

"The Screaming Skull" is at its best before the movie actually starts. There is a gimmicky bit where the producers promise to pay the funeral costs for anyone who dies of fright during the movie's climax. It's far more likely that a captive audience member will die of boredom or irritation before the movie runs its course, so the producers will never have to deliver on their promis, as that little bit is more chilling in a corny sort of way than most of what follows.

This is a would-be thriller with the now well-worn backdrop of a widower marrying a one-time institutionalized (but very rich) woman, moving back to the isolated old mansion he shared with his first love, and the fragile psyche of the new wife either starts unraveling, or perhaps she is really being haunted by the jealous ghost of the original lady of the house... or maybe someone is trying to drive her insane again.

I can't fault the film for its I've-seen-this-a-hundred-times-before plot, because it dates from 1958, but I do fault it for being just plain bad. The script is awful, and the acting is worse. There are only two things the filmmakers do right--first, they reveal the source of Jenni's (the mentally frazzled rich wife) terror at just the right moment in the film; second, they successfully manage to convey the woman's deteriorating sanity and growing sense of isolation).he acting is worse. In fact, the only actor who delives even close to a passable performance is Russ Conway, who plays Reverend Snow.

I will also grant that the final ten-fifteen minutes of the film are actually not bad in a third-rate horror movie kinda way. But the ending isn't so good that it makes up for suffering through what led up to it. (And the filmmakers back off from making the ending as powerful as it SHOULD be by wimping out when it comes to Jenni's mental health, or lack thereof.)

Other positive notes are that aside from portions of the ending, there are a few other genuinely creepy moments, such as when Jenni is left alone in the house (which is suddenly filled with animated skulls). There are also some very nice shots of her roaming the house, and of the mysterious, shadowhaunted, vegetation-choked grounds that surround the southern mansion where the movie takes place that show some glimmer of talent on the part of the cinematographer and technical crew. Unfortunately, every time the actors open their mouths to deliver badly written dialogue with a level of acting ability that might not even get them into a high school play, whatever gains the movie made it loses. The leading lady, Peggy Webber, is a great screamer, but that's all she's good for (although I suspect the scene of her stripping down to her bra and panties was pretty racey in its day, so maybe we can list stripping among her talents).