Thursday, November 30, 2023

Wednesday, November 29 - A Touch of Frost: Deep Waters & A Minority of One


DI Jack Frost investigates the stabbing of a woman during a robbery at a sub-post office. He is convinced that they have the culprits in custody but is frustrated by the limits placed on his ability to gather evidence. He also looks into an attack on the very pretty Helen Tudor who was pushed down the stairs at her university. She has no idea who may have pushed her but had recently rebuffed a professor, Dr. Michaelson, who had a reputation for getting too "close" to his students. In the course of the investigation, Frost learns that a woman very similar in appearance to Helen drowned some two years previously, even though she was a very good swimmer. Clive Barnard, now a DS in Boxborough, assists Frost in locating a possible suspect, a student who knew both girls. Frost finally finds himself a flat but also gets some unexpected lodgers.


DI Jack Frost investigates a series of commercial robberies. He's assisted by DC Carl Tanner, a black officer recruited by Supt. Mullett to encourage racial balance on the local force. When Frost makes an arrests on the local housing estate, Mullett's only concern is the culprit's racial background as he's concerned that the area not become a racial powder keg. When Frost's informant on the estate is killed, the case becomes a murder investigation, but all of the suspects are black and racial tensions are on the rise. In the course of his investigation, Frost determines that his informant had a number of secrets.

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Tuesday, November 28 - A Touch of Frost: The Things We Do for Love


DI Jack Frost, along with Det. Sgt. Nash who has just transferred from London, investigates the murder of Vicky Phillips, a local physiotherapist who was stabbed to death in her car. Frost suspects one of her patients, Jonathan Meyerbridge, who has a criminal record but is now a born-again Christian. The local butcher, Mr. Sykes, is also acting strangely and denies knowing the dead woman even though she had keys to the vacant flat above his shop. Frost is also investigating a series of smash and grab robberies in the commercial district. The culprits drive a vehicle through the front window of a business and take anything they can within a minute or so before they scamper off.

Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Monday, November 27 - Junior Prom

Junior Prom (1946)

The father of one of the students running for class president promises to buy new football uniforms if the school administration can guarantee his son will win. Fortunately for the other candidate, Freddie Trimball (Freddie Stewart), the principal balks at the plan. But with a musical show to get ready, a prom to plan, and endless singing in the school's Teen Canteen, does Freddie have enough time to campaign?

Monday, November 27, 2023

Sunday, November 26 - Next Time I Marry

Next Time I Marry (1938)

Heiress Nancy Crocker Fleming will only receive her inheritance if she marries a "plain American." Her late father was afraid a foreign gigolo would steal her heart and money. So Nancy pays Tony Anthony, working on a WPA road project, to marry, then divorce her. When Nancy inadvertently drives off with Tony's dog, Tony seemingly kidnaps her to retrieve the pooch, which leads to a cross-country race between the two to reach Reno and the divorce court since neither one wants to be the second to file papers.

Sunday, November 26, 2023

Saturday, November 25 - Model for Murder

Model for Murder (1959)

American sailor David Martens, on shore leave in England, visits his brother Jack's grave. He meets fashion designer Sally Meadows, who by coincidence works with Jack's ex-fiancee, Diana, a model. Successful stylist Kingsley Beauchamp and financial backer Madame Dupont own the company where Sally and Diana are employed.

Expensive jewels are to be worn by Diana when she models a new dress, but Beauchamp hires two men, Costard and Podd, to break into a safe after hours and steal the gems. Diana stumbles on the robbery and Costard kills her. He knocks David unconscious and decides to frame him for the theft, crashing a car with David inside, reporting it stolen and placing a ruby bracelet in David's pocket.

While the police make David a prime suspect, Beauchamp and Costard dispose of Diana's body and the diamonds. They decide to murder David after he suspects them, using gas, but Sally saves him. Diana's body is found in a river. David goes to Beauchamp's home (I thought it was Costard's home) and discovers the missing dress worn by Diana. He knows that Beauchamp is about to fly to Amsterdam, so he hurries to the airport.

Saturday, November 25, 2023

Friday, November 24 - The Gentleman from Nowhere

The Gentleman from Nowhere (1948)

Warner Baxter plays a security guard who was shot during a heist. The police believe he may be involved in the robbery, prompting the insurance company to investigate him. The insurance man, Luis Van Rooten, notices Baxter resembles Robert Ashton, a chemist who stole $100,000 from his company and went into hiding. Van Rooten contacts the chemical company and explains to the management he has found Ashton. Soon a lawyer (Charles Lane) contacts Van Rooten with a plan to keep a certain chemical company executive out of the story. It seems that Ashton may have had a co-conspirator working at the firm.

Things get interesting when Van Rooten learns that Baxter is in fact a man named Donovan and not Ashton. But this doesn't stop Van Rooten, who concocts an elaborate scheme where, for $165,000, he will deliver Baxter to the police. Baxter agrees to help fulfill Van Rooten's plan for $25,000. He turns himself over to the police and takes on Ashton's identity while awaiting trial. Ashton's wife is in on the scam, but she tells Baxter her husband was framed...

Friday, November 24, 2023

Thursday, November 23 - The Human Jungle: Fine Feathers


Fine Feathers deals with a young couple living way beyond their means. The wife, Penny, has not only landed herself hopelessly in debt but in trouble with the police. Dr Corder has to find out why Penny feels compelled to present a front of genteel high living, and why she is so riddled with guilt and shame.

Thursday, November 23, 2023

Wednesday, November 22 - Legion of Terror

Legion of Terror (1936)

Two newly-appointed postal inspectors, Frank Marshall and 'Slim" Hewitt, set out to track down the sender of a time-bomb to a U.S. Senator; during their investigation, they run across a hooded organization that is terrorizing an American city. They also meet Don Foster, who is loud in his condemnation of the terrorists, and his sister Nancy, who fears for her brother's life.

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Tuesday, November 22 - Night World

Night World (1932)

"Happy" MacDonald and his unfaithful wife own a Prohibition era night club. On this eventful night, he is threatened by bootleggers, and the club's star dancer falls in love with a young socialite who drinks to forget a personal tragedy, among other incidents.

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

Monday, November 20 - Shoot the Works

Shoot the Works (1934)

Jack Oakie plays a showbiz conman, hawking a stuffed whale exhibit on 42nd and doing anything to get noticed. He has stooge Roscoe Karns doing a flagpole sitting bit, while Arline Judge snags the unwary old men. It's all a con. Alison Skipworth sells the tickets.

Oakie runs into Dorothy Dell in a talent agent's office. He's trying to sell a song. Dell hears the song "With My Eyes Wide Open" and suggests they do an act. That brings Dell into the gang. But Dell is discovered one night singing with Ben Bernie's orchestra. She becomes a star, Oakie becomes a bum.

Monday, November 20, 2023

Sunday, November 19 - Colonel March of Scotland Yard: The Second Mona Lisa


O'Brien, a somewhat shady art dealer and owner of The Florentine Gallery, has invited March to his gallery and tells him that he has the original "Second Mona Lisa," painted six months after the famous painting. Even after O'Brien shows him the painting, March has his doubts saying that it is well known that renown collector and art expert Mathew Constable owns the painting. They get Constable himself to look at the painting and to his and March's surprise authenticates it as being the original. There are two bidders for the painting, one an Arabian Emir and the other a wealthy American. The Texan wins the bid but later claims that the painting was switched for a copy. March sorts it all out.

Sunday, November 19, 2023

Saturday, November 18 - The Invisible Wall

The Invisible Wall (1947)

Told in flashback, the film recounts how gambler Harry Lane (Castle) ended up accused of murder: Returned from the war he took up his old job working for bookmaker Marty Floyd (Keane). Dispatched by his boss to deliver $20,000 to a contact in Las Vegas, he foolishly loses some of the money at the gambling tables, then loses the rest of it to a conman (Gaines). His attempts to recover the money result in him accidentally killing the conman. In the end Lane is cleared when it is revealed that the victim was no victim after all.

Saturday, November 18, 2023

Friday, November 17 - Sweetheart of the Campus

Sweetheart of the Campus (1941)

Ozzie Norton and his band, featuring Betty Blake of Brooklyn, prepare for the opening of the College Club, a nightclub near the campus of Lambeth Technological . On opening night, Minnie Lambeth Sparr, daughter of the college founder, descends with Professor Bailey, the sheriff and Harriet Hale, daughter of Dr. Hale, president of the school. The band and all persons connected are arrested under an old statute. Harriet, against the move, arranges for their release. Betty, Ozzie and the band picket the college in jive fashion.

Friday, November 17, 2023

Thursday, November 16 - The Invisible Man: Point of Destruction & Death Cell


When a friend of Peter's, Scott, attempts to perfect his fuel diffuser, four pilots are killed in four separate test flights. Peter steps in to determine if sabotage is involved and who on Scott's team may be responsible.


Ellen Summers escapes from a sanatorium. She seeks out Peter and asks for his help proving her boyfriend George's innocence. However, she is forced to flee and the doctor who is treating her assures Peter that she is deluded. However, the Invisible Man isn't so sure.

Thursday, November 16, 2023

Wednesday, November 15 - Lady Behave!

Lady Behave! (1937)

Straight-laced Paula Kendall warns her fun-loving sister Clarice to behave at a Mardi Gras celebration, but to no avail, for the drunken Clarice returns home the next morning and announces that she has married wealthy Stephen Cormack, a man she met during the night. Paula is astounded, because Clarice is already married to a gigolo, Michael Dimitri Andrews. After Clarice passes out, Howell, the attorney of her new husband, arrives and offers Paula, whom he mistakes for Clarice, five thousand dollars to divorce Stephen, who fled the country after awaking to discover himself married. 

Burton Williams, Paula's godfather, advises her to impersonate Clarice and keep the marriage going while he obtains an annulment of Clarice and Michael's marriage, or else Clarice will be arrested for bigamy. Paula reluctantly agrees and moves into Stephen's home, where she meets Henry and Patricia, his teen-age children from a previous marriage. The children assume that Paula is a gold digger and plot to get rid of her...

Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Tuesday, November 14 - Bourbon Street Beat: Invitation to a Murder


Rex receives a copy of an invitation a local politico says has been sent to several people, inviting them to his murder at a party at his home at a given time. The politico wants Rex to find out who sent them and theoretically thwart his murder. The party happens before Rex is able to track down the source of the invitation, and there is a murder, but not the politico's. Someone has taken advantage of the murder invitations to kill someone else at the party.

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Monday, November 13 - Horror Island

Horror Island (1941)

Down-on-his-luck entrepreneur Bill Martin and sidekick Stuff Oliver try to stay one step in front of creditors in their seedy waterfront office when they meet "The Captain," an idiosyncratic peg-legged old sailor. The Captain is convinced that the treasure of pirate Sir Henry Morgan is hidden somewhere in a castle on an offshore island recently inherited by Martin. His proof is a treasure map, half of which has been stolen by a mysterious phantom who lurks in the shadows waiting for an opportunity to steal the other half.

Sensing a moneymaking opportunity, Bill tries to recruit customers willing to pay $50 apiece for a "treasure hunt" outing to the "haunted" island. Among those signing up are heiress Wendy Creighton and her bored, ineffectual boy friend, a dimwitted police sergeant, a professor whose expertise is old maps, a wanted murderer and his moll, and Bill's cousin George, who has recently offered $20,000 to buy the supposedly worthless island. They all get more than the few goosebumps they bargained for as death and the phantom await them in the ghostly castle.

Monday, November 13, 2023

Sunday, November 12 - Hawaiian Eye: Cloud Over Koala


Middle-aged bachelor Alfred Holland is enticed into romance by Peggy McClane, a much younger lady with a secret boyfriend, ex-con Cliff Johnson. Holland works for realtor John Peralta, who has just hired Tracey Steele and Hawaiian Eye to find a former business partner named William Vedder. Steele eventually learns that William Vedder, besides being hard to find, is an ex-con whose conviction was secured through testimony by Alfred Holland. Unable to find Vedder, Steele is advised by Lt Quon to seek out Cliff Johnson, his former cellmate...

Sunday, November 12, 2023

Saturday, November 11 - X Marks the Spot

X Marks the Spot (1942)

A private detective, Eddie Delaney, has just been commissioned a Lieutenant in the Army and has to report for duty in three days. Delaney's father is an Irish cop who is murdered by gangsters who have just stolen a truck loan of tires.

The gangster, Marty Clark, was a big time booze runner during prohibition who avoided prison because he always paid his income tax. Clark owns a night club called 'The Spot.' Delaney finds out that Clark was responsible for his father's murder and when Clark is murdered, Delaney becomes the number one suspect. Delaney then must find the real murderer and the ringleader of the rubber heisting gang.

Saturday, November 11, 2023

Friday, November 10 - Let's Live a Little

Let's Live a Little (1948)

The film is about an overworked advertising executive who is being pursued romantically by his former fiancée, a successful perfume magnate, who is also the ad agency's largest client. While visiting a new client—a psychiatrist and author—to discuss a proposed ad campaign, his life becomes further complicated when the new client turns out to be a beautiful woman, who decides to treat his nervous condition.

Friday, November 10, 2023

Thursday, November 9 - Million Dollar Weekend

Million Dollar Weekend (1948)

Quiet middle-aged businessman Nicholas Lawrence is fed up with his life and decides to embezzle his firm of a million dollars and flee to Shanghai. However, it becomes his misfortune to find himself seated with a dodgy pair of passengers on the plane: a beautiful young widow, Cynthia Strong, taking a trip to Hawaii to get away from it all after the untimely death of her husband, and tooth-clenchingly irritating Alan Marker, who has trailed her in an attempt to blackmail her by threatening to frame her for the murder of her husband...

Thursday, November 9, 2023

Wednesday, November 8 - Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper (1959)

In 1888, Jack the Ripper is on his killing spree. Scotland Yard Inspector O'Neill is pleased to welcome to London his old friend Sam Lowry, a New York City detective who has come to visit him and is only too happy to help out with the case. Sam becomes attracted to Anne Ford, a modern woman for the age, but her guardian, Dr. Tranter doesn't quite approve. The good doctor also seems to be out when the Ripper murders occur. As the population edge ever loser to taking the law into their own hands, the police slowly close in the killer.

Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Tuesday, November 7, 2023

Monday, November 6 - Honey West: The Princess and the Paupers & In the Bag


Honey and Sam are hired to ensure that ransom money is delivered and the kidnap victim, a rock-'n'-roll singing son of a millionaire businessman, is returned safely. Honey soon suspects that the kidnapping was faked, either as a publicity stunt or so the young man could lay his hands on some easy cash.


Honey has been hired to escort a little girl between divorced parents. But at the airport, two things happen - the girl is kidnapped and Honey picks up the wrong bag. The kidnappers will return the girl for the bag.

Monday, November 6, 2023

Sunday, November 5 - The Champions: Reply Box No. 666


A young explosives expert called Semenkin is found murdered in his Jamaican hotel room whilst posing as a French businessman. In his pocket is a newspaper advertisement reading 'Wanted:A Parrot that Speaks Greek. Reply Box 666' though the sixes have been altered to eights. Realizing it is a secret code, Tremayne sends Craig to the Caribbean to assume the dead man's identity. He falls in with a group who are looking for something, but when his cover is blown he is shot and thrown into the sea.

Sunday, November 5, 2023

Saturday, November 4 - The Human Jungle: 14 Ghosts


The wife of a High Court judge is arrested for shoplifting. She obviously doesn’t need to steal a scarf worth a few shillings. Dr Davis happens to be friends with the woman’s son-in-law and suggests that Dr Corder could help. Corder finds it’s a complicated family drama and as in The Lost Hours it’s by no means certain which member of the family has the real problem.

Saturday, November 4, 2023

Friday, November 3 - The Crime Nobody Saw

The Crime Nobody Saw (1937)

Three authors - Lew Ayres, Eugene Palette, Benny Baker) are trying to write a murder mystery for a producer that has already given them a 500 dollar advance to do so. The problem is, that the three have already spent the advance, their time is up, and they can't even get an idea off of page one.

They're facing jail if they don't get an idea, arguing among themselves, when in walks their neighbor from across the hall, Mr. Duvall. He is very drunk staggers around their apartment and passes out cold on their couch. The three find that he has a little black book on him, and that the book contains the names, phone numbers, and addresses of people who he is blackmailing.

Suddenly our trio arrive at a brilliant idea. They'll call the people in the black book, while impersonating the police, tell them that Duvall is dying, and that he wants to make a statement but insists they be present. They figure they can sweat a confession out of one of them, and whatever confession they get, that will be their play, already written by the murderer...

Friday, November 3, 2023

Thursday, November 2 - By Whose Hand?

By Whose Hand? (1932)

The film is a breezy murder mystery (working title was "Murder Express") with Ben Lyon doing a fine job as the lead Jimmy Hawley, a crime reporter, who boards a train more to pursue the beautiful Barbara Weeks than to follow a lead that the escaped Killer Delmar (Nat Pendleton) might be on the train. There are many suspicious characters aboard the train, including Ethel Kenyon as a jewel thief, Kenneth Thomson as a womanizing jeweler, Helene Millard as a "grieving" widow, and the always enjoyable William V. Mong as a vengeful, bitter old man. Detective William Halligan has in his care (in cuffs) one Chick Lewis (Dwight Frye), who had squealed on his old buddy Delmar and is now being transported to prison near San Francisco.

Thursday, November 2, 2023

Wednesday, November 1 - Rhythm Romance


Set mostly at a boardwalk arcade, Nicky Nelson (Bob Hope) is a small-time carnival promoter of Nicky Nelson Enterprises with Gene Krupa and his Orchestra as his assistants. For five years he's talked his way in and out of situations, but has never succeeded to the top of his profession. Outside of the office of Steve Hanratty (Bernard Nedall), agent for the City Pier Amusement Company, Nicky encounters Lily Racquell (Shirley Ross), a talented singer who has just lost her job. The two team up, but Nicky loses both his orchestra and vocalist after Lily discovers Nicky gambled away her diamond ring and their signature song to Hanratty. Under Hanrity's management, Krupa and Lily perform to great success at the Paradise Pavalion while Nicky, feeling he can go it alone, finds himself on a downward path.

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

Tuesday, October 31 - Invisible Ghost & The Invisible Man: Strange Partners

Invisible Ghost (1941)

The prominent Dr. Charles Kessler lives in a house with his daughter Virginia Kessler and his servants and misses his wife that left him. When there is a murder in his house, Virginia's fiancée Ralph Dickson is accused of the killing and sentenced to death penalty in the electric chair. Soon his twin brother Paul comes to Dr. Kessler's house, who invites him to stay in his house. Meanwhile, Mrs. Kessler is alive with neurological disorder after a car accident and hidden in the gardener's house that is secretly treating her. When she sneaks out of the house and sees Dr. Kessler in the window, he goes into a trance and turns into a killer.



The wealthy Lucian Currie has his butler steal Peter's papers and forces the Invisible Man to kill his elderly partner by hitting him in the chest and inducing a heart attack. To make sure that Peter follows his orders, Lucian has an attack dog that can sniff Peter out and kill him if he tries to slip away.