Shameless Self Expression

Don Gallico (Vincent Price) has been creating magic illusion contraptions for his employer Ormond (Donald Randolph), but wants to become a star magician himself: Gallico the Great. However, when Gallico (a master of disguise and mimicry) impersonates rival magician The Great Rinaldi and performs a new buzzsaw illusion with his lovely assistant (Mary Murphy), Ormond (and his legal representative) shut the performance down. Legally, Ormond owns all of Gallico’s creations, regardless of whether they are produced for his company or not. Further boiling Gallico’s blood is the fact that his spoiled ex (Eva Gabor) ran off with Ormond. When Ormond pushes Gallico too far one night, Gallico allows Ormond to get up close and personal with the buzzsaw…now fully operational and non-illusionary. This is only step one in Gallico’s descent into madness and murder. Patrick O’Neal plays Murphy’s sympathetic police lieutenant boyfriend who tries to help Gallico out at first. Jay Novello turns up as the m...

Scott Adkins stars as the former leader of West Ham’s Green Street Elite, a soccer hooligan ‘firm’. He comes back to the old neighbourhood after several years when hearing that his thuggish younger brother has been killed in an underground hooligan stoush. Yep, hooliganism has now gone underground. Adkins reluctantly joins forces with cop Joey Ansah (who is also the film’s fight choreographer) to figure out who was behind the young man’s brutal death. Meanwhile, he also tries to whip the old crew into fighting shape, seemingly all having become a bunch of lazy bums in Adkins’ absence. Kacey Barnfield plays the saucy local barmaid Adkins becomes sweet on and vice versa. Spencer Wilding plays a hulking rival gang leader.   The original “Green Street Hooligans” didn’t do much for me as I’m not a fan of soccer or the associated hooliganism. It was relatively well-made for what it was, but what it was didn’t interest me much, and co-stars Charlie Hunnam and Elijah Wood weren’t espe...