Saturday, October 31, 2020

Friday, October 30 - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Based on the story by Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Henry Jekyll believes that there are two distinct sides to men - a good and an evil side. He believes that by separating the two man can become liberated. He succeeds in his experiments with chemicals to accomplish this and transforms into Hyde to commit horrendous crimes. When he discontinues use of the drug it is already too late...

Friday, October 30, 2020

Thursday, October 29 - Stingaree

Stingaree (1934)

A suave criminal with a musical ear finds a girl in the sticks who sings like an angel and he risks life and limb to promote her career.

Thursday, October 29, 2020

Wednesday, October 28 - Picture Mommy Dead

Picture Mommy Dead (1966)

After watching her mother Jessica (Zsa Zsa Gabor) die in a mysterious fire, young Susan Shelley (Susan Gordon) is sent to a convent/mental hospital where she remains for three years. In the meantime, her father Edward (Don Ameche) has married Susan's former governess, Francene (Martha Hyer) who is also his former mistress. (This all happens before the film starts.)

After Susan's release from the hospital, she returns with her father and stepmother to the family estate. Immediately, the familiar surroundings bring back visions of her dead mother, as well as a gnawing suspicion that it was she herself who is responsible for her mother's death.

Meanwhile, the money-hungry Francene, who has exhausted her husband's share of his late wife's bequest, begins a campaign to return Susan to the hospital for good--thereby gaining the half million dollar inheritance held in trust for her. Enlisting the help of Susan's cousin Anthony, Francene also seeks to learn the whereabouts of a magnificent diamond necklace she is sure Susan has hidden.

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Tuesday, October 27 - Violent City

Violent City (1970) Città violenta (original title)

After a bloody double-cross leaves him for dead, professional hit man Jeff tracks the shooter and his beautiful mistress to New Orleans. But when Jeff takes both revenge and the woman, he finds himself blackmailed by a powerful crime boss who wants the fiercely independent gunman to join his organization. Jeff refuses, and is hunted through an unforgiving city where love is like a loaded gun and debts of vengeance are paid in bullets.

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Monday, October 26 - It Takes a Thief - A Sour Note

It Takes a Thief (1968–1970) - A Sour Note  (Episode  Season 2 | Episode 2 - aired 1 October 1968)

Al must travel to Italy, with an egotistical opera singer supplying his cover. The mission is to break into a theft-proof type safe that contains documents that may prove that a millionaire industrialist is a Nazi war criminal.

Monday, October 26, 2020

Sunday, October 25 - C.C. & Company

C.C. & Company (1970)

C.C. Ryder falls in with a biker gang in the desert, and then rescues Ann from trouble with the same gang. There next occurs a motocross race tied in with a fashion shoot. The Heads disrupt the event, but C.C. Ryder enters the race to gain Ann's favor. This puts him in conflict with Moon (the gang leader). When Ryder wins the race and leaves with his award money the gang kidnaps Ann, and Ryder must ride back to save her by racing with Moon.

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Saturday, October 24 - My Learned Friend

My Learned Friend (1943)

This comedy sees Will Hay playing a seedy lawyer, who finds himself marked for assassination by a forger whom he previously defended unsuccessfully. He teams up with an incompetent solicitor to try to prevent the deaths of others involved.

The film climaxes with a sequence where Hay hangs from the hands of the clock face of Big Ben in an attempt to prevent a time bomb being detonated.

Saturday, October 24, 2020

Friday, October 23 - The Groundstar Conspiracy

The Groundstar Conspiracy (1972)

Employee John David Welles attempts to steal rocket booster plans from the Groundstar facility. His attempt goes awry and he is badly disfigured in an explosion and barely escapes. He stumbles to the home of Nicole Devon, and collapses. She calls an ambulance, the authorities are alerted, and soon Welles is operated on, given plastic surgery and interrogated by a hard-boiled government official named Tuxan. But Welles claims to have no memory of his crime. In fact, he claims no memory of his life at all, save for brief glimpses of a woman and small boy frolicking on a beach.

Despite Tuxan's brutal interrogation techniques (electro-shock and water submersion), Welles still maintains his story of total amnesia. Tuxan allows Welles to escape, hoping he will lead them to the people behind the attempted theft. Welles goes to Nicole's home and begs her to help him remember. But she knows nothing.

Eventually the inside conspirators behind the attempted theft are found, and Tuxan reveals the truth to Welles, who still cannot remember any details of the crime. John David Welles actually died en route to the hospital on the night of the explosion. The man we have come to know as Welles is really Peter Bellamy, a government employee who recently lost his wife and son in an accident. Bellamy, feeling that life was no longer worth living or remembering, volunteered to have his memory wiped and to play Welles in order to draw the conspirators into the open.

Friday, October 23, 2020

Thursday, October 22 - Cat Girl

Cat Girl (1957)

Leonora Johnson (Barbara Shelley) is a woman who returns to her ancestral home and is told she will inherit money, but also that there is a family curse: being possessed by the spirit of a leopard in spite of her disbelieving psychiatrist Dr. Brian Marlowe (Robert Ayres).

Thursday, October 22, 2020

Wednesday, October 21 - The Age of Innocence

The Age of Innocence (1934)

At his 1875 engagement party, the wealthy Newland Archer (John Boles) is surprised to meet his childhood friend Ellen (Irene Dunne), beautiful and grown up and now Countess Olenska. Olenska is the cousin of his fiancee May (Julie Haydon) and is considered scandalous by the strait-laced society of the time. Newland, however, treats her well and sends her two dozen yellow roses. Olenska turns to Newland for advice about a possible divorce.

He soon realizes that he is in love with her.

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Tuesday, October 20 - Black Dragons

Black Dragons (1942)

A cabal of American industrialists, all fifth-columnists intent on sabotaging the war effort, are methodically murdered by the malevolent Monsieur Colomb. It is only until detective Dick Martin is assigned to the case that everyone's true motives and identities are revealed.

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Monday, October 19 - The Tuttles of Tahiti (1942)

The Tuttles of Tahiti (1942)

After a long absence from the island, Chester Tuttle returns to Tahiti to find that little has changed. His large family, particularly his scheming Uncle Jonas, would rather dance and romance than earn a living. When Jonas loses the family plantation in a cockfight, Chester saves the day by towing in a large ship abandoned at sea and claiming the salvage. But opening a joint bank account in the name of the Tuttle clan may not have been a wise decision...

Monday, October 19, 2020

Sunday, October 18 - Tiger Shark (1932)

Tiger Shark (1932)

Mike is a great tuna fisherman although he lost a hand to a shark years earlier saving Pipes Boley. Now Mike is happily married to Quita and doesn't notice that Pipes and Quita are falling for each other.

Sunday, October 18, 2020

Saturday, October 17 - Young Dillinger

Young Dillinger (1965)

John Dillinger first goes to jail after attempting to rob his girlfriend's father at her suggestion. Falling in with the likes of "Baby Face" Nelson and "Pretty Boy" Floyd, he arranges their escape from prison and they start on an escalating series of hold-ups.

Saturday, October 17, 2020

Friday, October 16 - The Narrow Corner

The Narrow Corner (1933)

In Sydney, Australia, bear-drinking captain Arthur Hohl (as Nichols) is hired by lSidney Toler (as Ryan) to take handsome Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (as Fred Blake) on an extended South Pacific Ocean voyage. Harboring some dark secret, Mr. Fairbanks must lay low for approximately a year. They pick up opium-addicted doctor Dudley Digges (as Saunders) before setting sail. After a storm, Fairbanks takes off all his clothes and swims to an island where he meets pretty Patricia Ellis (as Louise Frith). They fall in love, but she is promised to reliable Ralph Bellamy (as Eric Whittenson).

Friday, October 16, 2020

Thursday, October 15 - Port Afrique

Port Afrique (1956)

Rip Reardon, ex-Army flier, returns to his home in French Morocco and finds his wife dead, and he suspects she has been murdered. Police Colonel Moussac insists she committed suicide. Rip begins to suspect not only his friends but also a mysterious brunette, Ynez, a Casbah night-club singer with whom he begins to fall in love. Repeated efforts to kill Rip are made but he ultimately finds the evidence which sends him gunning against the killer...

Thursday, October 15, 2020

Wednesday, October 14 - Men in White

Men in White (1934)

Pressured by long hours filled with life-and-death decisions, medical intern George Ferguson (Clark Gable) grows increasingly exhausted and unsure about his career. After a night call forces him to break another date with fiancée Laura Hudson (Myrna Loy), George takes comfort with nursing student Barbara Dennin (Elizabeth Allan) -- unaware that his mentor, Dr. Hochberg (Jean Hersholt), knows of the liaison. Later, when confronted by Barbara's botched abortion, George must decide his future.

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Tuesday, October 13 - It's Not Cricket

It's Not Cricket (1949)

Major Bright and Captain Early are intelligence officers in the British army of occupation in post-World War 2 Germany. They are sent home on leave, but fail to notice that their new batman is actually wanted war criminal Otto Fisch. He vanishes on arrival in England and the two officers are punished by early demobilisation. Uncertain what to do in civvy street, they decide to utilise the "skills" they learned in the army and set up a private detective agency, "Bright and Early". They engage a secretary, Primrose Brown, but she's not very busy as they have as yet no clients.

Primrose's boyfriend/fiancee invites them all to a weekend country house party for a cricket match. But what they don't know is that the cricket ball they buy in London actually contains a valuable stolen diamond that Fisch has purloined. It has been hidden in the hollow ball by his friend and protector Mr Felix, who runs a sporting goods shop.

As the match gets under way, Fisch and Felix watch from the cover of the trees and manage to infiltrate the game, stealing the ball. A free-for-all chase ensues; Bright and Early manage to recover the ball and the diamond. They now become celebrities and don't lack for eager clients. Fisch is finally seen working for the detective agency, the two detectives still apparently unaware of his identity.

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Monday, October 12 - Highway Patrol - Desert Copter

Highway Patrol (1955–1959) - Desert Copter (Season 1 | Episode 24 - aired 12 March 1956)

Swindler-turned-murderer Stan Warren is on the run from the Highway Patrol and looking to leave the state quickly. He abandons his vehicle near a roadside diner and convinces desert-bound college professors Steve Lamont and Gordon Ryan to permit him to join them. After tying up Ryan, he forces Lamont to use his jeep to drive toward the state line over the rough and little-used desert roads. Dan Mathews uses the Highway Patrol helicopter to locate the moving jeep, get ahead of it, and commandeer a large truck to block the road. Warren is able to wound an officer during a brief gun battle near the stopped truck, but he is unable to escape from Dan Mathews, who fires upon him from the helicopter with a rifle.

Monday, October 12, 2020

Sunday, October 11 - Hud

Hud (1963)

Hard-drinking, arrogant, womanizing Hud Bannon (Paul Newman) lives a self-centered, indolent life supported by his hard-working and morally upstanding father, Homer (Melvyn Douglas), on the family cattle ranch in Texas. Hud's teenage nephew, Lonnie (Brandon de Wilde), blames Hud for the car crash that took the life of his father, Hud's older brother Norman, but shows hints of following in his ne'er-do-well uncle's footsteps when both men pursue family housekeeper Alma (Patricia Neal).

Sunday, October 11, 2020

Saturday, October 10, 2020

Friday, October 9 - The Devil Bat

The Devil Bat (1940)

Dr. Carruthers feels bitter at being betrayed by his employers, Heath and Morton, when they became rich as a result of a product he devised. He gains revenge by electrically enlarging bats and sending them out to kill his employers' family members by instilling in the bats a hatred for a particular perfume he has discovered, which he gets his victims to apply before going outdoors. Johnny Layton, a reporter, finally figures out Carruthers is the killer and, after putting the perfume on himself, douses it on Carruthers in the hopes it will get him to give himself away. One of the two is attacked as the giant bat makes one of its screaming, swooping power dives.

Friday, October 9, 2020

Thursday, October 8 - Where There's a Will

Where There's a Will (1955)

When their uncle dies without leaving a will, his farm passes to his nephew and two nieces, disappointing his housekeeper, Annie Yeo. While the nieces wish to sell the place, Alfie Brewer, has ideas of setting up as a farmer. Facing the hostility of his family, and some of the locals, he attempts to improve the farm before its mortgage is called in.

Thursday, October 8, 2020

Wednesday, October 7 - Pride and Extreme Prejudice

 Pride and Extreme Prejudice (1989)

A Soviet general offers the SIS important military documents, and a meeting is set up in East Germany, with McCready in charge of the operation. As the Soviets know him, he recruits his old friend Bruno Morenz, a BND agent, who has to break BND rules to enter East Germany, which he does as a favour to McCready. Morenz secures the documents, but his life is in chaos, as he has just accidentally killed a woman and her pimp boyfriend and is on the run from the police. McCready finds Morenz a hiding place and enters East Germany to join him. With the Stasi closing in on them, and Morenz unable to escape, McCready kills him with poison, takes the documents, and escapes to the West.

Wednesday, October 7, 2020

Tuesday, October 6 - Scared to Death


Scared to Death (1947)

The film opens with the disclosure by morgue examiners that a beautiful woman has literally died of fright. The plot reveals how she reached the fatal stage of terror.

The woman is married to the son of a doctor, the proprietor of a private sanatorium, where she is under unwilling treatment. Both the son and the doctor indicate they want the marriage dissolved. Arriving at the scene is a mysterious personage (Bela Lugosi) identified as the doctor's cousin who had been a stage magician in Europe. He is accompanied by a threatening dwarf (Angelo Rossitto).

After it is apparent that the wife is terrified of the foreigners, it is disclosed that she is the former wife and stage partner of a Paris magician known as René, who was believed to have been shot by the Nazis. Attempts to draw a confession that she had betrayed her magician husband and had collaborated with the Nazis led to the use of a device employing a death mask of the supposedly dead patriot, which literally frightens her to death.

Although the young newspaperman hero and his sweetheart guess the answer to the story, they allow the diagnosis "scared to death" to stand.

Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Monday, October 5 - Sin Takes a Holiday

Sin Takes a Holiday (1930)

Sylvia Brenner is a plain secretary sharing an apartment with two other girls, one of whom is her friend Annie . Her economic condition is meager, but she makes do with what she has. She works for a womanizing divorce attorney, Gaylord Stanton , who only dates married women; he has no intention of ever getting married and sees wives as safe, since they already have husbands. But Sylvia is secretly in love with Gaylord. When the woman he is fooling around with, Grace Lawrence , decides to leave her husband in order to marry Gaylord, he panics. In order to avoid having to deal with the matrimonial pursuits of any of his potential dalliances, he offers a business proposal to Sylvia whereby he will provide her with financial remuneration if she will marry him in name only. She agrees.

After the sham wedding, Sylvia is sent off to Paris by Gaylord, to get her out of the way so he can continue his nightly debauchery. In Paris, she uses her money to do a serious makeover of herself. While there, she also meets her boss's old friend, Reggie Durant , who falls in love with her. Reggie is a sophisticated European, who introduces Sylvia to the enticements of the European lifestyle, to which she is attracted. When Reggie asks Sylvia to divorce Gaylord so that she can marry him, she is tempted, but confused, and returns home. Returning to the States, everyone takes notice of the transformed Sylvia.

Although there is a brief hiccup, as Grace puts forth a full-court offensive to win over Gaylord, Gaylord and Sylvia end up realizing that they are in love with each other.

Monday, October 5, 2020

Sunday, October 4 -

 

The Black Castle (1952)

Englishman Sir Ronald Burton (Richard Greene) believes his two close friends have been murdered by the evil Count Karl von Bruno (Stephen McNally..complete with eye patch). It seems that Burton and friends were responsible for driving von Bruno from Africa.

Assuming the alias of Richard Beckett, Burton secures an invitation to go to von Bruno's "black castle" for a hunting party. there he plans to gather evidence to show that von Bruno had murdered his two friends. Burton meets von Bruno's wife Elga (Paula Corday) who is trapped in an arranged marriage. The two begin to fall in love.

Dr. Meissen (Karloff), the castle physician is sympathetic to the young couples plight. He goes so far as to murder Count Steiken (John Hoyt) when he overhears Elga and Burton confess their love for each other. Burton leaves the castle with evidence he has discovered but is forced to return when Dr. Meissen informs him that von Bruno has imprisoned Elga. While attempting to rescue her he battles with von Bruno's brutish mute servant Gargon (Chaney) whom he sends into a pool of alligators.

To help the couple escape, Dr. Meissen administers a potion to them that will send them into a death like trance. von Bruno discovers the plot and...

Sunday, October 4, 2020

Saturday, October 3 -

Espionage (1937)

Lowe plays a smart-aleck mystery novelist who agrees to board the Orient Express to get the goods on an arms dealer (Lukas) for a newspaper editor pal. But when his passport is lifted by a pickpocket (Gallagher), he finds himself forced to pose as the husband of passenger Evans, unaware that she's a reporter who's also on Lukas' trail.

An European munitions magnate has disappeared and various governments are alarmed. Reporters Kenneth Stevens and Patricia Booth from different newspapers board a train after getting the same tip. They join forces to pose as a married couple to track down the elusive magnate.

Saturday, October 3, 2020

Friday, October 2 - Earth vs the Spider

The Spider (1958) Earth vs the Spider (original title)

When a man doesn't come home one night his daughter and her boyfriend go out searching and encounter a giant spider in a cave near the man's wrecked car. Coming back with the Sheriff, the spider is seemingly killed by DDT spraying, and the body then hauled for storage in the high school gymnasium. However, a loud dose of rock music by a teenage garage band revives the arachnid and sends it rampaging through the town.

Friday, October 2, 2020

Thursday, October 1 - Summer Storm

Summer Storm (1944)

In this filmed Chekhov adaptation, Olga is an alluring peasant woman who lures cynical aristocrat Fedor away from his milquetoast fiancée, with tragic consequences.

George Sanders plays a judge living in pre-revolutionary Russia. He eventually meets up with a gorgeous peasant girl (Linda Darnell) and he is absolutely smitten with her. However, what he doesn't know is that she turns out to be a heartless...um....lady. Eventually, after throwing away another woman who would have been a great match, he learns that she is NOT a nice lady. She'd used him and was simply a conniver.

Thursday, October 1, 2020

Wednesday, September 30 - Wake Up and Dream

Wake Up and Dream (1946)

Farmer Jeff Cairn (John Payne) loves waitress Jenny (June Haver), but she isn't impressed with his career choice. Jeff enlists in the Navy, sending his young sister, Nella (Connie Marshall), to live with a relative. But Nella runs away and returns to stay with an old man, Henry Pecket (Clem Bevans), whom she has befriended. When Nella receives word from the military that Jeff is missing, she sets out to find him in a boat along with Henry and Jenny, who has reconsidered her feelings for Jeff.