Tuesday, March 30 - The Tell-Tale Heart

The Tell-Tale Heart (1960)

Edgar Marsh, a shy librarian, becomes infatuated with his neighbor Betty Clare when he sees her undressing in her bedroom. He invites her to dinner, and although she clearly is uncomfortable with the attention he pays her, he showers her with jewelry and fantasizes about their future. Complications arise when he introduces her to his friend Carl Loomis, whom Betty finds far more attractive and appealing. After witnessing Carl and Betty together in her bedroom, Edgar bludgeons Carl to death with a poker and buries him beneath the floorboards in his piano room. His overwhelming guilt leads him to believe a ticking metronome and the incessant dripping of a faucet actually are the sound of his victim's heart still beating.

Monday, March 29 - Fate Takes a Hand

Fate Takes a Hand (1961)

Fifteen years after a mail robbery, the loot is recovered, along with several letters. It's up to Ronald Howard to track down the recipients, because the mail must go through. Newspaper reporter Christina Gregg goes along, hoping for a human interest story or two.

These tales include a love-lorn blind woman, paling to the rudimentary comic relief of a working man standing up to his boss after winning money... while the most earthy has a prisoner recollecting a little girl's kidnapping...

One about a husband being framed by a crooked wife... only to occur before and after the letter-carrying-duo arrive...

And a punchy ex-brawler who "could have been a contender" before throwing a fight...

Sunday, March 28 - The Whip Hand

The Whip Hand (1951)

Matt Corbin (Elliott Reid) is a reporter for a news magazine. When he arrives in a small town in rural Minnesota, his reporter senses start tingling because things just don't add up there. Despite always being known as a great place to fish, all the fish are dead. And, despite there being no local industry or jobs, folks have moved INTO the town despite the crash of the fishing industry. And, finally, there is a compound nearby that is guarded like Fort Knox! Clearly something is going on here...and little does Corbin know that it's actually a base for germ warfare run by Commie-Nazis!

Saturday, March 27 - Honeymoon for Three

Honeymoon for Three (1935)

When returning home drunk from a night out a young man (Lupino) accidentally finds himself in a woman's (Marson) flat where he passes out. Before he make his escape in the morning they are discovered by their parents and a passing policeman and forced to marry. They go through the ceremony but plan to go to California to get a divorce, and set off on their "honeymoon" along with her real fiancée (Melford). However during the journey she gradually begins to change her loathing of him.

Friday, March 26 - Outcast of the Islands

Outcast of the Islands (1951)

Peter Willems (Trevor Howard), a selfish and ambitious man, is accused of stealing in his position as manager of a shipping port operation near Singapore. After he is dismissed for his misconduct he reacquaints himself with the trading ship Capt. Lingard (Ralph Richardson) who befriended him as a 12-year-old boy. Lingard agrees to help Willems regain his reputation by taking him to a trading village located up a difficult-to-navigate channel near the coast of Batam. Lingard's son-in-law, Elmer Almayer (Robert Morley), operates a trading operation for Capt. Lingard in the village. Lingard asks Almayer to take Willems under his wing and teach him the business. While Lingard is away on one of his sea trips, Willems abuses his trust, seduces the village chieftain's daughter Aissa (Kerima), attempts to steal Almayer's business operation, humiliates Almayer before the villagers, and shares the navigation secrets of the channel with an Arab trader who competes with Capt. Lingard. Lingard returns to discover the mess Willems has made and confronts Willems — who has now been condemned by the villagers because of the shame he brought to the frail and dying chieftain. He abandons Willems to live in isolation and exile.

Thursday, March 25 - The Fire Raisers

The Fire Raisers (1934)

Leslie Banks is a hard working and disliked insurance investigator, willing to threaten and reward minor criminals for return of stolen goods to the insurers -- with a nice cut for himself. He's doing well, but when an expensive wife and slow horses catch up with him, he gives into temptation, in the form of Sullivan, who has organized a ring of arsonists and wants an investigator who will look the other way.

Wednesday, March 24 - London Belongs to Me

Dulcimer Street (1948) London Belongs to Me (original title)

The film concerns the residents of a large terraced house in London between Christmas 1938 and September 1939. Among them are the landlady, Mrs Vizzard (played by Joyce Carey), who is a widow and a believer in spiritualism; Mr and Mrs Josser (Wylie Watson and Fay Compton), and their teenage daughter Doris (Susan Shaw); the eccentric spiritualist medium Mr Squales (Sim); the colourful Connie Coke (Ivy St. Helier), the young motor mechanic Percy Boon (Attenborough) and his mother (Gladys Henson).

Percy is in love with the Jossers' daughter and turns to crime to raise money to impress her with, but he bungles a car theft and finds himself accused of murder. Mr Josser digs into his retirement fund to hire the boy a lawyer. Mr Squales testifies against Percy, but in the process exposes to his fiancée Mrs Vizzard the falsity of his claims to be able to contact the dead and to predict the future.

Percy is found guilty, but his neighbours rally to his defence. With the assistance of Mr Josser's staunchly socialist Uncle Henry (Stephen Murray), they gather thousands of signatures on a petition to win him a reprieve. At the end of the film, Percy's supporters march through the rain to Parliament, only to discover just before their arrival that clemency has already been granted.

Tuesday, March 23 - Behind the Mask

Behind the Mask (1958)

Clinical melodrama, pivoting on a big hospital, concerning a young doctor whose professional life is troubled by divided loyalties. From the novel - 'The PACK' by John Rowan Wilson

Monday, March 22 - Spring Meeting

Three Wise Brides (1941) Spring Meeting (original title)

An impoverished widow takes her son Tony (Michael Wilding, charming as ever) to stay in Ireland with an old flame of hers, Sir Richard Furze, a very wealthy widower. Tiny hopes that Tony will marry Sir Richard's elder daughter, Joan, who stands to inherit her father's estate, but Tony inconveniently falls for Baby, Joan's younger sister. Meanwhile Joan is enamoured of her father's groom, Michael, who loves her, but feels he is too lowly to aspire to her hand. Tiny sets out to sort out all the lovers' problems, while also hoping to kindle her old flame, Sir Richard. There is an amusing performance by Margaret Rutherford as an eccentric elderly relative who can't resist a flutter on the horses, and several cheerful Irish servants to add a bit of local colour.

Sunday, March 21 - Brother Alfred

Brother Alfred (1932)

Based on a play by P. G. Woodhouse. Most of this film is set on a boat anchored in Monte Carlo.

Gerrard is accused of assaulting a prince in the casino. He pretends to be his twin brother Alfred who is expected to arrive at any moment. However it turns out that the twin has been invented by the Trustee of his settlement to hide the trustees embezzlement of the fund. It then transpires that Gerrard is being praised for assisting the Prince not assaulting him. However he has made it difficult for himself by stating that only Alfred has a mole on the back of his neck.

Also... after she finds him embracing one of the maids, a man's fiancée ends her engagement to him. In an effort to win her back he disguises himself as a fictional twin brother.

Saturday, March 20 - Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment (1935)

Roderick Raskolnikov, a brilliant criminology student and writer, becomes embittered by poverty and his inability to support his family (his sister and mother). When he sees a desperate prostitute, Sonya, degraded by a vicious pawnbroker, Raskolnikov, a proponent of the idea that some people are imbued with such intelligence that the law cannot be applied to them as to other people, decides to rid the world of the pawnbroker and thus save his family and Sonya as well from the fate poverty forces on them. When Porphiry, the police detective investigating the murder, encounters Raskolnikov, he finds a man nearly crippled by the guilt and paranoia his deed has burdened him with. But Raskolnikov clings with as much coldness and calculation as he can muster to his guiding idea, that some crimes ought not to be punished.

Friday, March 19 - Dusty Ermine

Hideout in the Alps (1936) Dusty Ermine (original title)

After being released from prison Jim Kent, a leading forger, is approached by an international counterfeiting organisation. He rejects their offer of employment as he intends to go straight, but when he discovers that his nephew is now working for the outfit he travels to Switzerland to try to help him out. An ambitious young detective from Scotland Yard is also on the trail of the forgery ring, and mistakenly comes to the conclusion that Jim Kent is still working as a master counterfeiter.

Thursday, March 18 - Baby Love & Widows: part 3

Baby Love (1969)

After her impoverished, cancer-ridden mother (Diana Dors) commits suicide, schoolgirl Luci (Linda Hayden) is adopted by her mother's ex-lover Robert (Keith Barron), now a wealthy, married doctor living the high-life in London. Once in her new home, the deeply-disturbed girl gradually spirals out of control, teasing teenage son Nick (Derek Lamden), flirting with sleazy family friend Harry (comedian Dick Emery), allowing herself to get felt up in a cinema, taunting local lads by the river (and risking being raped for her trouble), whilst driving a wedge between her adoptive parents by awakening latent lesbian urges in her new mother! Phew!

Widows: part 3

Dolly, Linda, Shirley and Bella practice for the raid. Tony attacks Eddie Rawlins when he is fed the false information by Boxer, before searching for Linda and Shirley...

Wednesday, March 17 - American Playhouse - The Roommate

American Playhouse (1980–1994) - The Roommate [aired 27 January 1986]

Orson Ziegler and Henry "Hub" Palamountain are polar-opposite roommates at Northwestern University in 1952. The conflicts between this freshman "Odd Couple" become humorously explosive as they try to finish the semester without killing each other.

Tuesday, March 16 - Father Brown – Detective

The Detective (1954) Father Brown (original title)

Amateur detective Father Ignatius Brown defies his Bishop and decides to transport to Rome a holy relic from his church, a cross that once belonged to St. Augustin, rather than allow the more elaborate plans to proceed. On the channel crossing, he becomes suspicious of a fellow traveller, a Mr. Dobson, who Brown quickly determines is not the automobile salesman he claims to be. He does befriend another priest who he takes into his confidence, but soon realizes that his suspicions should have been reversed. The fake priest is in fact Gustave Flambeau, a professional art thief and an expert at disguise. After he gets away with the cross, Brown refuses to work with the police, insisting that he wants to save the man's soul, not put him in prison. With the assistance of his friend Lady Warren, Father Brown sets a trap for Flambeau, but Brown realizes that his work is only just beginning.

Monday, March 15 - Dentist in the Chair

Dentist in the Chair (1960)

Kenneth Connor steals dental instruments by accident, flogs them to two students, who flog them to other students and then have to recover them by raising a hundred pounds to buy them back.

Sunday, March 14 - Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter

Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter (1968)

Herman (Peter Noone) lives in Manchester, England, with a greyhound named Mrs. Brown. He's sure the dog is a surefire money-winner, and so the Hermits, his band, pack up and head for swinging London, with designs on making their fortune at a big greyhound race. Along the way, they meet hobos, millionaires and fashion models. They also end up in a punch-up and find work playing shows. But music is just something on the side, because Mrs. Brown is their ticket to the easy life.

Saturday, March 13 - The Removalists

The Removalists (1975)

Trouble brews when a veteran police officer and his rookie partner attempt to protect an estranged woman from her husband's brutality.

Friday, March 12 - The Amazing Transparent Man

The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)

Paul Krenner, an ex-major with delusions of grandeur, has forced scientist Peter Ulof to develop a radiation-based technique to turn men invisible, with which process he plans to create an invisible army to sell to the highest bidder. He busts safecracker Joey Faust out of prison and forces him to undergo the invisibility treatment so he can steal more radium to further the experimentation. Plans go awry when Faust discovers there is a side-effect to the invisibility treatments he didn't count on.

Thursday, March 11 - Gonks Go Beat

Gonks Go Beat (1964)

A rock-n-roll musical send-up of Romeo and Juliet centering on two squabbling islands: Beatland and Ballad Isle. Intergalactic ambassador Wilco Roger is summoned to resolve the differences between the communities, employing the tactic of uniting a Beatland boy and a Ballad Isle girl; if he is unsuccessful he faces exile to Planet Gonk.

Wednesday, March 10 - Widows Episodes 1 & 2

Widows TV Mini-Series (1983–1985)

Three armed robbers — Harry Rawlins, Terry Miller, and Joe Perelli — are killed during an armed robbery. They are survived by their widows, Dolly Rawlins (Ann Mitchell), Shirley Miller (Fiona Hendley), and Linda Perelli (Maureen O'Farrell). With the police applying pressure, and a rival gang intending to take over Harry Rawlins' crime business, the widows turn to Dolly for leadership.

She uses Harry's famous "ledgers", a cache of books detailing all his robberies over the years, to find the details of the failed robbery, and, enlisting the help of a fourth woman, Bella O'Reilly (Eva Mottley), they resolve to pull off the raid themselves. At the same time, they discover the "fourth man" in the raid escaped—leaving their husbands for dead. Dolly must contend with the police and the gang, as well as her fellow widows, agitating for vengeance.

Tuesday, March 9 - The Castle of Fu Manchu

Sax Rohmer's The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969)

Supercriminal Dr. Fu Manchu plots to freeze the world's oceans with a diabolical new device. With his evil daughter, Lin Tang, his army of dacoits, and the help of the local crime organization led by Omar Pasha (whom Dr. Fu Manchu double-crosses), Dr. Fu Manchu takes over the governor's castle in Istanbul, which has a massive opium reserve, to control the largest opium port in Anatolia, since the drug is an important ingredient for the fuel for his machine. Dr. Fu Manchu needs the help of an intelligent scientist with an ailing heart whom he has imprisoned. In order to keep the scientist alive, he kidnaps a doctor and his wife to give the scientist a heart transplant from one of his obedient servants. Opposing him from Britain's branch of Interpol are his nemeses, Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie.

Monday, March 8 - The Ghost Goes West

The Ghost Goes West (1935)

Peggy Martin (Parker), the daughter of a rich American businessman (Eugene Pallette), persuades him to purchase a Scottish castle from Donald Glourie (Robert Donat), dismantle it and move it to Florida. Along with the castle goes its ghost.

Murdoch Glourie (also played by Donat) haunts the castle after dying a coward's death in the 18th century. To find rest, he must get a descendant of the enemy Clan MacClaggan to admit that one Glourie is worth fifty MacClaggans.

Sunday, March 7 - The Fifth Cord

The Fifth Cord (1971) Giornata nera per l'ariete (original title)

"I am going to commit murder," whispers our killer, as the camera flits around the jaded revellers at a New Year shindig. "I can imagine the thrill and pleasure I will experience as I stalk my victim..." Shortly after, John Lubbock (Maurizio Bonuglia) survives an attack in an underpass on his way home, and journalist Andrea Bild (Franco Nero), a fellow attendee, decides to investigate. Then a second party goer - invalid Doctor's wife Sophia Bini (Rossella Falk) - is attacked and killed in her home, and Andrea's elderly editor is found dead in a local park, both bodies accompanied by the killer's calling card (a black glove with first one then subsequent fingers cut off). Suddenly, the outspoken, hard-drinking journalist finds himself rising swiftly up the list of suspects...

Saturday, March 6 - Rabbit, Run

Rabbit, Run (1970)

Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom (James Caan) comes home one day from his sad, dead-end job to his sad, cramped apartment to find his sad, pregnant wife Janice (Carrie Snodgrass) asleep, splayed in front of the TV, highball glass in hand. After only a moment's contemplation, he decides to leave. Snatching up his coat and car keys, he's off and running, taking the viewer on a rambling, aimless journey.

Harry goes to visit his old basketball coach who introduces him to Ruth Leonard, a sometime prostitute, who he immediately moves in with. When Janice goes into labor a few months later, he leaves Ruth, eventually returning to the apartment with Janice, their 2-year-old son Nelson, and new baby daughter Becky, and taking a job working for his father-in-law selling used cars. But Harry's restlessness still dogs him and domestic harmony does not ensue.

Friday, March 5 - Beyond the Time Barrier

Beyond the Time Barrier (1960)

An experimental pilot testing a new rocket powered craft manages to fly into the future and land at the now deserted airbase he left. He ends up in a city with people who are suspicious he is a spy and who want to keep him to procreate with the ruler's daughter because the majority of the inhabitants are sterile.

He inexplicably passes up this wonderful opportunity in order to escape and return to his own time, where he gets no action whatsoever.

Thursday, March 4 - Lover Come Back

Lover Come Back (1961)

Jerry Webster and Carol Templeton are both in the advertising business, but for different agencies. Annoyed by Jerry's methods of using alcohol and women to ensure contracts for his agency, Carol tries to get him thrown out of his profession. To avoid this Jerry bribes the girl who'd testify against him, by starring her in a TV commercial for a product named VIP that he's just made up. By accident these commercials are broadcasted and to keep his job, Jerry has to come up with VIP for which he enlists the help of Doctor Linus Tyler. Carol goes to see the Doctor to try and get the VIP account, but because she and Jerry have never met, she mistakes Jerry for the Doctor. Jerry then takes advantage of this situation to win her.

Wednesday, March 3 - The Hound of the Baskervilles DOUBLE FEATURE

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

On his uncle's death Sir Henry Baskerville returns from abroad and opens up the ancestral hall on the desolate moors of Devonshire. Holmes uncovers a plot to have Sir Henry murdered by a terrible trained hound.

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1983)

Sherlock Holmes comes to the aid of his friend Henry Baskerville, who is under a family curse and menaced by a demonic dog that prowls the bogs near his estate and murders people.

Tuesday, March 2 - Four Days

Four Days (1951)

Businessman Francis Templar (Hugh McDermott) suspects his neglected wife Lucienne (Kathleen Byron) of having an affair with his business partner's son Johnny (Peter Reynolds). When the two of them confess, Templar refuses to give his wife a divorce and she retaliates by trying to poison him. Johnny however, intervenes, and manages to prevent the murder. During the next few days, Lucienne comes to realise she loves her husband after all; but Templar, believing his wife is about to leave him, attempts suicide by jumping off a cliff. He survives the fall, but loses all memory of the previous four days. Now an amnesiac, Templar is blissfully in love with his devoted wife. However, she fears their happiness is only temporary, and dreads the return of her husband's memory. To make matters worse, Johnny then reappears to blackmail Lucienne, threatening to reveal all to her husband.

Monday, March 1 - A Study in Terror

A Study in Terror (1965)

In this Sherlock Holmes tale, Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary 19th-century British sleuth (John Neville) is on the trail of Jack the Ripper. In the dark alleys of London, the notorious Ripper has committed a series of gruesome murders when Holmes takes on the task of solving these horrific crimes. The process takes Holmes from the lowest rungs of society all the way to the peak of the aristocracy, discovering blackmail and family insanity.

Sunday, February 28 - Just for You

Just for You (1952)

In this romantic musical, widowed producer Jordan Blake (Bing Crosby) readies his latest show with star Carolina (Jane Wyman), and they confess a mutual attraction. However, Jordan's son, Jerry (Bob Arthur), has developed a crush on Carolina as well, unaware of his father's intent. Meanwhile, Barbara (Natalie Wood), Jordan's teen daughter, seeks admittance to an elite girls school. Meaning well but lacking parenting savvy, Jordan tries to help both children with the transition to adulthood.