Tuesday, Oct. 23 - Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Cheney Vase

Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–1962): The Cheney Vase (Season 1 | Episode 13 - aired 25 December 1955)

Lyle Endicott is a smooth manipulator, but he's not smooth enough to save his job at a Manhattan art museum. And his talent doesn't seem to have gotten him anywhere in life. "Why not just once can something go right for me?" he wonders. Luck finally seems to shine on him when he overhears his boss, Mr. Koether, talking to one of the museum's patrons, Martha Cheney, an invalid who uses a wheelchair. She and Koether call each other by their first names, but their friendship isn't enough to persuade Miss Cheney to sell him the famous Cheney vase. Lyle realizes the heirloom is worth a lot of money -- money that can be his if he manages to insinuate himself into the old woman's life.

Sunday, Oct. 21 - Eyes Without a Face

Eyes Without a Face (1960) Les yeux sans visage (original title)

After causing an accident that left his daughter Christiane severely disfigured, the brilliant surgeon Dr. Génessier works tirelessly to give the girl a new face. He does so however by kidnapping young women and attempting face transplants. He has been woefully unsuccessful to date. The doctor's world begins to collapse around him when his daughter realizes just what he has been doing.

Saturday, Oct. 20 - Supernatural: Ghost of Venice

Supernatural (1977): Ghost of Venice (Season 1 | Episode 1 - aired 11 June 1977)

An exclusive society, the Club of the Damned, demands an unusual qualification for membership. Prospective members must tell a tale of the supernatural. If the story succeeds in chilling the nerves of the existing membership then the would-be member is admitted. If the story fails to satisfy even one member then not only is membership refused - the prospective member forfeits his life..

The first episode, Ghosts of Venice, has an old theatre actor who believes something has been stolen from him but he doesn't know quite what. The story has elements of a timeslip and when the actor meets the ghost of a former lover, things begin to come together.

Friday, Oct. 19 - Reducing

Reducing (1931)

New York City beauty-spa operator Polly Rochay (Polly Moran) graciously opens her home to her penniless sister, Marie (Marie Dressler), and her family from back home in South Bend, Ind. Polly's snooty, social-climbing daughter, Joyce (Sally Eilers), is horrified by her poor relations, especially Marie's pretty and kindhearted daughter, Vivian (Anita Page). When Joyce's wealthy boyfriend, Johnnie (Buster Collier Jr.), takes a liking to Vivian, Joyce's jealousy sparks a family-wide rift.

(But Johnnie ends up having to marry Joyce and I think we know why!).

Thursday, Oct. 18 - Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Santa Claus and the Tenth Avenue Kid

Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–1962): Santa Claus and the Tenth Avenue Kid (Season 1 | Episode 12 - aired 18 December 1955)

Petty thief Harold 'Stretch' Sears has served several prison sentences, and is again out on parole. He is given a job as a department store 'Santa Claus', but his cynical nature makes the job difficult. Miss Webster, who arranged the job for him, keeps trying to encourage Sears, but only succeeds in irritating him. As Sears does his best to get through the holiday season, he notices a bad-tempered boy who keeps coming to the store, arguing with him that there is no Santa Claus, and stealing small items from the store. Fearing for the boy's future, Sears feels an odd impulse to do something for the boy.

Wednesday, Oct. 17 - Evenings for Sale

Evenings for Sale (1932)

Impoverished Count von Degenthal (Marshall) plans to commit suicide and spends his last night at a costume ball. There he meets lovely Lela Fischer (Maritza) and falls in love with her. A chance meeting with his former butler brings a job offer as a gigolo in a dance club. He dances with Jenny Kent (Boland), a wealthy American heiress, and she becomes so enamoured with him that she buys his castle, clearing all his debts. The count gives her his treasured ring in gratitude, and Lela misinterprets this as an engagement to be married and shuns him. Kent receives news from America that she has become a grandmother, and it dawns on her that she has been foolish in pursuing a much younger man. She returns to America, Lela's misunderstanding is cleared up, and she and the count reconcile.

Tuesday, Oct. 16 - Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Unlucky Gambler

Sherlock Holmes (1954–1955): The Case of the Unlucky Gambler (Season 1 | Episode 37 - aired 18 July 1955)

A young boy shows up at Baker Street, asking for Holmes' help in finding his missing father. Holmes' investigation reveals that the man is a gambler on the run from his creditors, and the team begins to make the rounds of the seedy gambling underworld in search of the boy's father.

Monday, Oct. 15 - Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Guilty Witness

Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–1962): Guilty Witness (Season 1 | Episode 11 - aired 11 December 1955)

Stanley Crane is working at his grocery when Mrs. Verber comes in with a badly bruised face. Stanley's wife Dorothy believes that Mr. Verber hits his wife, and is having affairs with other women. Back at home, the Cranes hear the Verbers having a violent argument in the apartment above theirs. The next day, when Mr. Verber is missing, and soon afterward a detective starts poking around the apartment building, the Cranes can't help suspecting the worst.

Sunday, Oct. 14 - The Steel Fist

The Steel Fist (1952)

In an unidentified Central European country "somewhere behind the Iron Curtain," a group of students stage a riot to protest the Soviet occupying government's forced labor program. Student Erik Kardin leads the protest, and when the police hunt for him, turns for help to his uncle, Prof. Kardin...

Roddy McDowall stars as Erik, an idealistic young student in an unnamed Iron Curtain country. Pursued by the communist police for speaking his views, Erik is sheltered by the underground. While being smuggled out of the country, he finds time to fall in love with Marina (Kristine Miller), who unfortunately has also developed a close relationship with Red-army officer Giorg (Rand Brooks).

Saturday, Oct. 13 - Absolute Quiet

Absolute Quiet (1936)

Businessman Gerald Axton goes to his ranch to rest, having had a near-heart-attack due to business worries. But while there (with his female assistant who makes his heart flutter as much as his business worries), a pair of escaped criminals crashes the party, as well as a plane load of passengers who literally crash in. Coincidentally, the plane was carrying the state's governor, whom Axton was at odds with, Axton's ex-paramour and her lover, whom Axton was sending away under false pretenses, and a reporter willing to write up all the sordid details.

Friday, Oct. 12 - A Matter of Life and Death

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

Returning to England from a bombing run in May 1945, flyer Peter Carter's plane is damaged and his parachute ripped to shreds. He has his crew bail out safely, but figures it is curtains for himself. He gets on the radio, and talks to June, a young American woman working for the USAAF, and they are quite moved by each other's voices. Then he jumps, preferring this to burning up with his plane. He wakes up in the surf. It was his time to die, but there was a mixup in heaven. They couldn't find him in all that fog. By the time his "Conductor" catches up with him 20 hours later, Peter and June have met and fallen in love. This changes everything, and since it happened through no fault of his own, Peter figures that heaven owes him a second chance. Heaven agrees to a trial to decide his fate.

Thursday, Oct. 11 - Chad Hanna

Chad Hanna (1940)

In the 1840s, Chad Hanna (Fonda), a New York country boy working along the canal in Canastota, New York, joins a travelling Huguenine circus. He falls in love with beautiful bareback rider Albany Yates (Lamour), but she spurns him. Chad then finds himself attracted to another runaway, country girl Caroline Tridd (Darnell).

Though everybody assumes that the boy is slow on the uptake, Chad manages to save the circus from financial ruin.

Wednesday, Oct. 10 - Pressing On: The Letterpress Film

Pressing On: The Letterpress Film (2016)

From self-proclaimed basement hoarders to the famed Hatch Show Print, Pressing On: The Letterpress Film explores the question: why has letterpress survived in a digital age?

Tuesday, Oct. 9 - A Thief of Time

A Thief of Time (2004)

Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn are covering separate cases. Chee must find a stolen backhoe, and Leaphorn is looking for an anthropologist accused of stealing pots from a Navajo burial site. However, Leaphorn soon discovers that the anthropolgist is missing, and Chee finds the backhoe at a burial site--along with the dead bodies of two grave robbers. The two men quickly learn that their two cases must somehow be related.

Monday, Oct. 8 - The Mystery of Mr. Wong

The Mystery of Mr. Wong (1939)

The second in the series of Mr. Wong features starring Boris Karloff finds wealthy gem-collector Brandon Edwards gaining possession of the largest star sapphire in the world, the 'Eye of the Daughter of the Moon', after it has been stolen in China. Edwards, at a party in his home, confides to Mr. Wong that his life is in danger. During a game of Charades, Edwards is mysteriously shot dead and the gem disappears. Unknown to Wong, the jewel is in the possession of Edwards' maid, Drina, who intends to return it to China, but she is murdered also, and the gem is taken again. After one more murder—the suspect list is dwindling—Wong exposes the killer, turns him over to Police Inspector Street, and Wong orders his manservant Willy to return the gem to China.

Sunday, Oct. 7 - Gangway

Gangway (1937)

Newspaper film critic Pat Wayne (Jessie Matthews) boards an ocean liner to New York to interview glamorous movie star Nedda Beaumont (Olive Blakeney). Once aboard, Pat somehow gets mixed up with a gangster (Nat Pendleton), and a Scotland yard inspector (Barry MacKay), who both mistake her for a female jewel thief called "Sparkle."

Inspector Bob Deering is on the trail of ‘Sparkle’, an international jewel thief. He meets a newspaper reporter, Pat, who is writing a story about a film star and obtaining information by pretending to be her maid. When she accepts an invitation from Bob for an evening out, she is sacked and, to save her reputation, she steals a necklace. Unfortunately, the necklace actually belongs to a friend of Bob and leads him to suspect that Pam is actually the elusive ‘Sparkle’.

Saturday, Oct. 6 - Make Me a Star

Make Me a Star (1932)

A small-town delivery boy Merton Gill (Stuart Erwin) arrives in Hollywood, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and complete with a diploma from the National Correspondence Academy of Acting. Crashing the gates of Majestic Pictures Merton manages to fumble his one line bit in the latest Buck Benson (George Templeton) western and is fired on the spot. Unwilling to leave the studio, the hapless thespian survives on leftover scraps from the extra's lunch boxes until discovered by comedy starlet "Flip" Montague (Blondell), who takes pity on him and arranges a meeting with Jeff Baird (Sam Hardy), head of the slapstick comedy unit. Bestowed a new name, Whoop Ryder, Merton is starred in what he assumes to be a serious western melodrama but what in reality is yet another burlesque featuring cross-eyed low comic Ben Turpin. Although a big hit with preview audiences, a humiliated Merton is ready to return to the grocery business when "Flip" persuades him to stay by telling him that he is "darn near perfect."

Friday, Oct. 5 - Strictly Dishonorable

Strictly Dishonorable (1951)

In New York in the 1920s, amorous opera star Augustino "Gus" Caraffa (Ezio Pinza) crosses paths with Isabelle Perry (Janet Leigh), a naive music student from Mississippi who is his biggest fan. When a news photographer catches them in a kiss, it is proposed that they get married in name only to avoid a scandal. Isabelle, who is in love with Gus, agrees to the charade, hoping that he will eventually fall in love with her.

Thursday, Oct. 4 - White Cargo

White Cargo (1942)

Arriving by seaplane to inspect an isolated, but thriving rubber plantation in the African jungle during World War II, Worthing (Richard Ainley) reminisces about the old days, when conditions were much harsher. The film then flashes back to 1910.

The only four white men within hundreds of miles eagerly await the arrival of the riverboat Congo Queen. Wilbur Ashley (Bramwell Fletcher) and his boss, Harry Witzel (Walter Pidgeon), have grown to hate each other. Ashley is finally going home, and the boat is also bringing his replacement, Langford (Richard Carlson), for a four-year stint. The other two white men are the alcoholic doctor (Frank Morgan) and missionary Reverend Dr. Roberts (Henry O'Neill).

Harry and Langford get off to a bad start, and it only goes downhill from there. It takes all of the efforts of the doctor and Roberts to keep the two men from each other's throat. The situation becomes worse when Tondelayo (Lamarr), a seductive native woman, returns. Harry, as resident magistrate, had already previously ordered her to leave his district as a disruptive, amoral influence.

Tondelayo begins to work her wiles on Langford. Despite the warnings by all three of the other men (and perhaps to spite Harry), he eventually succumbs to her charms. When Harry orders her expelled once more, Langford decides to marry her. Roberts reveals that she is not a native, but rather half Egyptian and half Arab, and in spite of his better judgment, reluctantly joins them in holy matrimony.

After five months, Tondelayo has grown bored of her husband. However, when she tries to seduce Harry, he reminds her that she is Mrs. Langford "until death do you part". That gives her an idea. When her husband becomes sick, the doctor gives her some medicine to give him periodically. She obtains poison and makes him drink some of it instead. However, Harry suspects what she is trying to do. He leaves, then returns just as she is about to give Langford another dose. Harry forces her to drink the rest of the poison. She runs away screaming and collapses on the jungle floor.

The doctor takes Langford away on the Congo Queen for better medical treatment, identifying him as white cargo. From the boat comes Langford's replacement: a younger Worthing. Harry grabs him and forcefully tells him that he will stick around. Returning to the present, Worthing observes that he did.

Wednesday, Oct. 3 - The Gelignite Gang

The Dynamiters (1956) The Gelignite Gang (original title)

Insurance investigator Jimmy Baxter searches for a gang of jewel robbers. His fiancée Sally does some sleuthing on her own and finds valuable clues. Baxter tracks the gang to its lair, but then Sally is kidnapped by Mr. G, the gang's secret mastermind.

Tuesday, Oct. 2 - A Strange Adventure

A Strange Adventure (1956)

Two hoods(Jan Merlin and Nick Adams) and their girl(Marla English) rob an armored car and force a teenage boy(Ben Cooper),who is smitten by Marla,to drive them in his hot rod on their getaway. They end up in a mountain cabin that they take over from a brother and sister(Joan Evans) who are there working for the forestry service. They are soon snowed in.

Monday, Oct. 1 - Big Hearted Herbert

Big Hearted Herbert (1934)

Herbert Kalness has worked hard to build up a successful plumbing supplies manufacturing company from nothing. His wife Elizabeth loves him dearly and is willing to put up with much. However, his grownup children, Alice and Junior, are put out by his constant complaining. Junior wants to go to college, but Herbert insists his son go to work for him in his business. Meanwhile, Alice has fallen in love with and wants to marry Andrew Goodrich, a Harvard graduate and lawyer (both qualities Herbert despises).

When Elizabeth arranges a dinner to get acquainted with the future in-laws, Herbert proceeds to antagonize everyone. So she decides to give him a taste of his own medicine. When he brings customers home for dinner, she and the rest of the family act just as obnoxiously to them as Herbert had to the Goodriches. He eventually capitulates, and domestic peace is restored.

Sunday, Sep. 30 - The Cuckoos

The Cuckoos (1930)

Professor Bird (Woolsey) and his partner, Sparrow (Wheeler), are a pair of charlatan fortune tellers who are bankrupt and stranded at a Mexican resort just south of the border. An heiress, Ruth Chester (June Clyde), appears, who is running away from her aunt, Fanny Furst (Jobyna Howland). She is in love with an American pilot, Billy Shannon (Hugh Trevor), but her aunt wishes her to marry the European nobleman, The Baron (Ivan Lebedeff), whom the aunt believes is the "right" type of person for her niece.

Sparrow, meanwhile has fallen in love with a young American girl, Anita (Dorothy Lee), who has been living with a band of Gypsies. This creates an issue, since the leader of the Gypsy band, Julius (Mitchell Lewis), has had his eye on Anita for years.

When Fannie Furst arrives, she attempts to persuade Ruth into marrying the Baron, but unbeknownst by Fannie, The Baron is only interested in marrying Ruth for her money. During the course of events, Fannie falls in love with Bird, but when the Baron finds out that Ruth is engaged to Billy, he conspires with Julius to kidnap her. During the kidnapping, Anita is also taken, and the girls are taken deeper into Mexico. Bird, Sparrow and Billy track them down and recover the girls, and they live happily ever after.