Tag Archives: Edgar Wallace

The 20th Monthly Review of September 2026

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I don’t know if I could say things went well enough in September to call it a turnaround, but they have improved. I’m currently only 11 films behind my Challenge target, which is back down to below the level of tardiness I was at in March and April.

Plus, this month alone I made the same number of trips to the cinema as in the whole of 2025, and more than in the whole of 2024! That number of trips was, um, two… but still, it’s a true fact.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#50 The Double (1971) — Failure #9
#51 Cocaine Bear (2023) — 50 Unseen #5
#52 Magnificent Bodyguards 3D (1978) — Genre #5
#53 Coyote vs. Acme (2026) — New Film #9
#54 Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) — Series Progression #7
#55 Team America: World Police (2004) — Rewatch #4
#56 Belle de Jour (1967) — Blindspot #5
#57 Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 1 (2012) — WDYMYHS #5
#58 Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 2 (2012) — WDYMYHS #6
#59 Suspicion (1941) — Blindspot #6
#60 Topper (1937) — Wildcard #9
#61 The Set Up (1963) — Series Progression #8
#62 The Rescuers (1977) — Rewatch #5
#63 The Rescuers Down Under (1990) — Rewatch #6


  • I watched 12 feature films I’d never seen before in September.
  • That makes September the best month of 2026 for new films — indeed, for film viewing fullstop — so I’m finally heading in the right direction.
  • It’s also my second consecutive month with at least ten first-time watches, which is the first time I’ve managed two such months back-to-back since October/November last year.
  • 11 of those first-timers counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with three rewatches.
  • The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under win spots by dint of being relatively short. Of course, I did want to rewatch them sometime: they’re Disney canon films I saw in childhood but have no strong memories of; but that’s hardly been a pressing project. Nonetheless, I had them ready to go, and they’re under 80 minutes apiece, so they were great for squeezing in on weeknights, especially when I’m so far behind my target.
  • This month’s Blindspot films were (to quote the original poster) “Luis Bunuel’s masterpiece of erotica” Belle de Jour, and the only Alfred Hitchcock movie to earn an acting Oscar, Suspicion.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS films were both parts of Indian gangster epic Gangs of Wasseypur. I’ve been planning to watch that double over a single weekend ever since I fell behind on my WDYMYHS goal (which has been for most of the year), so I’m glad to have finally pulled it off.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched films Coyote vs. Acme, The Double, and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, plus TV short La cabina.



The 136th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
At one time destined to end up in the dustbin of history — literally, as Warner Bros planned to scrap it — the fact we can even see Coyote vs. Acme is something to be applauded. Heck, that’s a big reason why I went to see it at the cinema rather than just waiting for disc or streaming. Fortunately, as well as being a victory for the release and preservation of art, it’s also damn funny.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
It seems almost churlish to pick on a ’60s programme-filling B-movie, but the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series are usually moderately solid but The Set Up (or, as it’s technically titled on screen, The Set up) was disappointingly weak. It’s adequately made on the surface, as the series always is, but the plot is predictable and hole-riddled literally to a fault. Or several faults, even.


I don’t really like turning film viewing into a tickbox exercise… although I guess you could argue that’s inherent in the current structure of my Challenge, so maybe I shouldn’t be so snooty. Anyway, with three months of 2026 left, if I want to complete my goal then a typical month needs to contain 12 qualifying films, made up more-or-less as follows:

  • 1 New Film
  • 2 Rewatches
  • 2 Blindspot films
  • 2 WDYMYHS films
  • 1 Failure
  • 1–2 ‘50 Unseen’ films
  • 1–2 Genre films
  • 1 Series Progression

I was hoping that summary would be neater than having to assign “1 or 2” films to some categories, but my viewing hasn’t been so neat — because it’s not just a tickbox exercise, see! Even the Series Progression number isn’t quite right: I’ve only got two to go (plus one Wildcard, so that’s sort of covered off there, even though it’s a completely different category). Heck, even saying I need to watch 12 films a month isn’t quite accurate, because the average is actually 12.3.

But the overall point is: it’s still a challenging Challenge. Will I get it done? The number of films I watched in September renders the answer to that a definite “maybe”.

The 20th Monthly Review of February 2026

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In my review of the generally disappointing start to 2026 that was January, I commented that “I suspect February won’t hit eight Challenge films either.” Well, spoiler alert for the rest of this post: it didn’t. But it did improve on last month (marginally), so that’s something.

There have been external factors limiting my film viewing thus far this year, but things are taking a turn for the normal now, so hopefully March will mark an improvement. Until then, here’s the little February had to offer.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#4 Solo for Sparrow (1962) — Series Progression #1
#5 Playback (1962) — Series Progression #2
#6 Dead Souls (2025) — New Film #1
#7 The Naked Gun (2025) — Failure #2


  • I watched four feature films I’d never seen before in February — double the number I watched in January.
  • All of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, but no rewatches this month.
  • That does make this the best month of the year for new films, beating January’s two. Not much to boast about, but it’s better than going the other direction.
  • You’d have to go back almost seven years to find a pair of months that were comparably as bad: four and five new films respectively in June and July 2019.
  • In fact, with a grand total of six new films between them, the only other pairs of consecutive months that are equally as bad were almost 17 years ago, when July 2009 was my only ever zero-film month, and June and August either side of it only had six films apiece.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched The Naked Gun.
  • But still no Blindspot or WDYMYHS films yet this year.



The 129th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Slim pickings again, but the reboot of The Naked Gun was good enough that it would’ve been a contender even in a typical month. It recaptures the spirit of the original trilogy perfectly but dodges the bullet of being slavishly self-referential, as so many other legacy sequels are. It’s unquestionably the same formula, but done in a way that fits the modern era. Sublime silliness.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I watched a couple of films from the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series of B-movies this month. As I’ve found typical of that run of films, they’re perfectly adequate crime filler but rarely exceed that remit. Of this pair, Playback has an edge of originality (even if it’s still fundamentally a do-over of Double Indemnity), so Solo for Sparrow is the loser.


As I said at the start, I hold hope that next month will begin to see things turn around. “93 Films in 10 Months” isn’t quite as catchy a title, but it’s what I’m aiming for now.

The August Monthly Review Club

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August has been a funny old month. On one hand, it’s felt like there’s been no time to get anything done — just like every month nowadays, really. But on the other, it seemed very long — it feels like ages since I wrote the July monthly review.

In a similar vein, whereas I struggled (and ultimately failed) to hit my viewing targets in July, I made it past ten new films this month without even particularly trying. Considering I’ve both been extra busy at work and had a host of other options and distractions taking up my free time — some of them excitingly new, as well as the old favourites — it’s a minor miracle. Indeed, I’d basically written off getting to ten films this month (once you’ve failed once, what does failing again the month after matter, eh?), only to succeed regardless. Wonders will literally never cease.

As for how this month’s viewing translates specifically to my Challenge… read on.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#65 Candidate for Murder (1962) — Series Progression #9
#66 The Power of the Dog (2021) — 50 Unseen #7
#67 Gwen and the Book of Sand (1985) — Failure #8
#68 Girl, Interrupted (1999) — Blindspot #8
#69 The Road to Hong Kong (1962) — Series Progression #10
#70 The Thursday Murder Club (2025) — New Film #8
#71 Project A (1983) — WDYMYHS #8
#72 The Wild Robot (2024) — 50 Unseen #8


  • I watched 11 feature films I’d never seen before in August.
  • Eight of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge.
  • No rewatches this month, which is a shame as I’m meant to get in at least one a month. Still, it’s not the first time I’ve had to catch up on them this year, so, y’know, these things happen. (Should I be injecting more fake jeopardy into my commentary when I fail like this?)
  • I needed to get to #74 to be a whole month ahead of pace again. Obviously that didn’t happen, but I’m still six films in the clear, which is a nice buffer.
  • Part of that included finishing off the Series Progression category for 2025. 40% of the qualifying films this year came from the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series of British crime B-movies, which is perhaps more than I’d’ve liked (I’ve got so many series on the go, I’d appreciate the incentive to progress some others). That said, it was almost worse: it was set to be 50%, but then I watched something else that counted…
  • To wit: I finally finished the Bing Crosby/Bob Hope ‘Road To’ series. I watched my first of those back in 2007 — this blog’s very first year. And that’s why I like (or need) a tangible incentive to get on with these things.
  • Speaking of tangible incentives, this month’s Blindspot film was the gender-bent remake of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (okay, that’s a tad harsh, and it’s not literally that… but it certainly feels like it in places), Girl, Interrupted.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Jackie Chan’s piratical actioner Project A.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Gwen and the Book of Sand.



The 123rd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I’m struggling for standout films this year — it’s been one of those years where you begin to think, “have I just seen all the great films already?” The closest I’ve come to having my faith restored is this month’s favourite pick, cosy sci-fi animation The Wild Robot.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Greatness may be in short supply, but there’s also nothing terrible this month — although there was plenty of mediocrity. I don’t know if it was the outright worst film I saw, but the biggest letdown was The Thursday Murder Club. So much potential, and it got some of it right, but some poor adaptation decision scuppered the overall effect.


The year’s final third begins. It’ll be Christmas before we know it…

The Tumultuous Monthly Review of October 2023

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Well, I don’t know about you, but October’s been a funny old month around these parts. On the one hand, my minor medical maladies continued when I caught Covid. Fortunately, it was no worse than a bad cold, although it managed to linger somewhat in the form of a cough and a certain amount of lethargy, which ultimately led to me missing one of the two films I’d booked at FilmBath Festival. Disappointing, but at least it was one I’ll have a chance to see again in the future. The other screening — the one I made it to — included Danny Boyle’s rarely-seen short Alien Love Triangle, so I was glad not to miss that.

Also in the “negatives” column (as far as film viewing was concerned) was my personal marathon of various media in honour of Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary. Again, that robbed time from possible film watching, but not as much as feared after the BBC announced the new 60th anniversary specials won’t begin airing until 25th November. I’d been cramming stuff in aiming for 11th November, so I gained a bit of leeway once that news broke. Naturally, some of my re-gained time has been applied to movies.

And so, after all that tumultuousness, the past month in my Challenge ended up going as follows…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#73 Road to Utopia (1945) — Wildcard #9
#74 Partners in Crime (1961) — Wildcard #10
#75 Close-Up (1990) — Blindspot #8
#76 Flora and Son (2023) — New Film #9
#77 Nothing Sacred (1937) — Failures #10
#78 The Pigeon Tunnel (2023) — New Film #10
#79 Sing Street (2016) — Rewatch #10
#80 The Possessed (1965) — Genre #4


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in October.
  • Yes, I’m back up to my minimum monthly target! At this point, I’ll save any more commentary on that until after we see how November and December play out.
  • Seven of those films counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • I completed my third Challenge category this month. After concluding Series Progression in August and Physical Media in September, this month it was the turn of the Wildcards. So much for them possibly being useful in December! The final two were spent on, funnily enough, a Series Progression and a Physical Media. Don’t expect any more to be crossed off until December now — two of them can’t be, due to their own rules; two of them shouldn’t be, because they’re designed to be paced throughout the year; and the other one is just too far off being done.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Abbas Kiarostami’s drama/documentary line-blurrer Close-Up.
  • No WDYMYHS film this month. More on that in the “next month” section.
  • From last month’s “failures” I only watched Nothing Sacred.



The 101st Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
There are multiple possible interpretations of “favourite” in this context. The usual one is “best”. Another might be “most enjoyable”, which is more what I actually aim for. This month, I’m slightly realigning that to be “one I’m most glad I’ve seen”. I may have seen ‘better’ movies this month, but Danny Boyle’s short Alien Love Triangle was really good and, thanks to its extreme rarity, I’m pleased I even got the chance to see it. I hope it’s made more widely available sometime, because it’s fun and deserves an audience, and because I’d like to see it again.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I guess this goes to the Edgar Wallace Mystery Partners in Crime, which wasn’t bad — as a series of B-movies, they’re mostly solidly entertaining — but everything else I watched this month was slightly better.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
My continued lack of posting in between these monthly reviews means this category was once again a two horse race. Although, as if in a vain attempt to keep things moderately interesting, this month it was September’s Failures that was victorious. Neither set the chart alight, mind — it’s still my old TV columns that do most of the business.


As we head into the final 50 ‘useable’ days of the year (approximately. It’s family and Christmas stuff that take out the rest), I’ve got 20 films to go to complete my 2023 Challenge.

That includes four for both Blindspot and WDYMYHS. Sounds pretty equitable, right? Ah, but not all films are created equal! Those four WDYMYHS noirs have a combined running time of just under 7 hours, while the four remaining Blindspots add up to a little over 18 hours. Yeah, I’ve accidentally saved the three longest for last, again. Oops. History suggests I’m going to fail to pull it off, but you never know…