Starring Charles Laughton, 1938’s The Beachcomber is not as smoothly directed and edited as Laughton’s Mutiny on the Bounty, but it’s an engaging effort all the same, based on a Somerset Maugham story. Laughton’s role is that of a ne’er-do-well island dweller whom a schoolteaching missionary wants to reform. He seems unreformable, though; is he? There are curiosities and contingencies. For her part, the schoolteacher, Martha, is a stern Christian who is herself converting to a degree she would not have expected. The film ends the way it does because it is a comedy—serious but exaggerated.

At first I thought Laughton’s acting was rather mannered, but soon found it subtle and droll; persuasive. Elsa Lanchester is wonderfully true as Martha. The film is the sole directorial work of producer Erich Pommer. Recommendable.

To me, musical though it is, God Help the Girl (2014) features too many songs, most of which I didn’t care for. This was often because of the hazy lyrics. The lovely “Come Monday Night” is an exception. All the songs were written by Stuart Murdoch, who also scripted and directed the film. The story is slight but not uninteresting, certainly containing a spiritual dimension. (Why is GHTG so unprofound, though?)

The cast is good. I can’t really judge Emily Browning‘s singing, but her acting is palatable. So is that of Olly Alexander, but Hannah Murray needs to make a bigger splash. So: there are reasons to see Murdoch’s film.

With the Great Depression persisting, it was hard to find a job in 1939, especially for a bachelorette. Polly Parrish (Ginger Rogers) is working only a seasonal job in the ’39 Bachelor Mother but, ah, it benefits her when the lass turns into a . . . Bachelor Mother, perforce taking care of an abandoned baby. Out of pity, the company boss (David Niven) hires her for permanent work. Everybody mistakes Polly for the baby’s mother—and then there is regrettable ignorance about the identity of the father.

There is not much to say about this flick (directed by Garson Kanin). It’s a romantic comedy which isn’t very funny, but at least has an original screenplay by Norman Krasna and Felix Jackson. It’s a family film that will appeal especially to women and non-fastidious children. David Niven—who was an “approachable” and dapper but masculine actor—is winning. So is the understated Rogers. The whole crew keeps Bachelor Mother humming along, pleasantly.

Months ago I gave the film Babygirl, by Halina Reijn, a positive review. I have since seen the piece a second time and am prompted to critique it rather further. It presents us with sexual kinkiness and infidelity, and frankly this material is a bit tired. I still don’t underrate the script, though; Reijn is a talented writer. Further, Babygirl is nicely—and, by Nicole Kidman, magnificently—acted, as well as photographically perfect (cinematographer: Jasper Wolf). Kidman is certainly not miscast as either a CEO or a sexual oddball. It is right that Reijn, in the first pre-intimacy scene with Romy and Samuel, made Samuel (Harris Dickinson) alternately no-nonsense and amused. . . The film is a small triumph. And kudos to the director for liking Ibsen.

The two middle-aged academics in Stuart Gordon‘s Re-Animator (1985) are hardly charmers. Well, they really get their comeuppance in this crazy horror flick, and likewise with the arrogant young med student, Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs), who knows how to re-animate corpses. He’s unworthy of the discovery.

Based on writings by H.P. Lovecraft, this cult concoction turns into an adult fairy tale with a damsel in distress. Such actors as Combs and Barbara Crampton are delightfully adept, but David Gale and Robert Sampson are also wildly, creepily convincing. Moreover, Re-Animator is one of the most sensual American movies I’ve seen. The pronouncedly attractive Ms. Crampton has breasts that are comely from every angle, and are fondled by a headless reprobate! Her damsel-in-distress scenes compete well with, say, Giovanni Baglione’s painting, Judith and Holofernes. I mean it. There are some other nude bodies in the film, in dim lighting, but they aren’t sensual.

Nice, smooth work by director Stuart.