The Bloody Brood (1959)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Purely Joyful Movie!

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Let's get one thing out of the way - I like Peter Falk. In this movie he's restrained, cold, and creepy. Shame the rest of the cast are rubbish.Nico is a fireside philosopher to all the beatniks at the local hangout, giving them their kicks via parties and monologues about life in general, but he's also making his cash from selling them gear and has the mind of a lizard. He's down on the squares and after witnessing the natural death of a newspaper salesman, he plots to up the ante by murdering someone. Thing is, that someone has a brother who won't stop until he find's the murderer.To put it simply - when Falk is on screen this film is a hoot. He's really playing a man without a soul who has to go to extremes to even feel anything (and even then there's doubt regarding whether or not that happens). He uses every single other character in the film and only looks vaguely surprised when it all backfires. However, a good half of the film is set around the victim's brother, and this makes the film slow to a crawl.However - worth a look for Pre-Colombo Falk playing the bad guy, other than that, this film is for squares, daddy-o.

Poorly acted, poorly scripted, choppy edited, and poorly transfered onto DVD, this film barely gets above sedate pulse rate mode. The plot promises much, man takes investigation of murder into his own hands due to ineptitude of investigating detective, well that last line I wrote is about as good as the film gets !. It would be nice if the villain of the piece was actually villainous, but sadly Peter Falk as Nico just doesn't instill any sort of menace and worse still is that he is surrounded by cartoonish followers who act like they are in a Bugs Bunny cartoon instead of the beatnik classic some seem to think this is.There is no tension worth writing about, and the finale brings about cries of relief that it's over rather than the nod of approval I'm sure the makers were hoping for, I have no idea what the budget for the movie was, but if it was more than the price of a bacon sandwich then the makers should spend 52 weeks in the stocks whilst we throw rancid tomatoes at them.I give it a generous 2/10 for the delightful Jazz beat score and the brave attempt from Barbara Lord to act with any sort of honest dignity in amongst the swamp of pain.Pah.

The first Canadian exploitation film ever made, with a way young Peter Falk playing a beatnik-gangster-mole who feeds a delivery boy 'a hamburger full of ground glass' - that phrase becomes a mantra as the Wonderbread protagonist-come-lately sleuths through the shocking and unseen world of the young bohemian! The beatniks are not shown as evil, they're just stupid dupes - that's nice. They're also viewed at a long arms-length via our virtuous heroes (there's also a girl, who is saved from an interesting life by mister blowdry). "The Mask" is later and greater Roffman, though it too depicts subcultural life as immoral and despicable while it cashes in on its allure. But why do ya think they call it 'exploitation'? It's got some energy, it's got Peter Falk, and it's competently shot when it's indoors. What's "Canadian" about this movie, I hear the tenured laggards inquire? Here's what's Canadian about it: it looks like Brits trying to look American only it's whiter than either.

Nico, seller of dreams, off on an intellectual kick to give death a new meaning. OK nice premise but this movie is so SLOW. It makes me want to be square if this is what rebellion is like. There were some good parts, I can't believe I am saying this but I liked Peter Falk's character, the crime should have been perfect, and the over acting of Frances was even good for a few laughs. But I could never get into this movie. Maybe because the plot was so predictable Columbo could have figured it out without the "by the way" questioning. Perhaps I was expecting more gore since this was included in a Schlockfest movie pack called Gore and More. No, I think it is that I had to check my pulse repeatedly to make sure I was still alive, and had the snooze alarm set for every 4 minutes trying to keep me awake. I had to attempt 3 times to cover parts I slept through - Quite an accomplishment for an 1 hour movie. This is a completely forgettable movie - pass it over when you get the option.