Monday, Jan. 30 - Route 66: The Cruelest Sea of All

Route 66 (1960–1964): The Cruelest Sea of All (Season 3 Episode 25 - aired 5 April 1963)

Tod and Linc are in Crystal River, Florida working at Weeki Wachee "the Spring of Live Mermaids". Tod is the only "merman" amongst 30 "mermaids" entertaining tourists. He meets an odd newcomer. She is a tireless swimmer with abnormal lung capacity and a murky background. Tod wonders is it all a put-on or is she a real mermaid?

Sunday, Jan. 29 - Delightfully Dangerous

Delightfully Dangerous (1945)

Sherry is a student at a musical school who yearns for a career on the stage, like her elder sister Jo. But the fat is in the fire when Sherry travels to New York to see her sister on the stage, and finds out that she's not a top Broadway actress, but "Bubbles Barton" the burlesque queen. When the siblings meet theatrical impresario Arthur Hale, he makes them both stars, and falls for Josephine in the process.

Saturday, Jan. 28 - Skirts Ahoy

Skirts Ahoy! (1952)

Unlucky in love, three women (Esther Williams, Joan Evans, Vivian Blaine) join the WAVES to see the world and meet men.

Three friends have had too many man troubles. Society girl Whitney Young had planned to marry, but left her fiancé at the altar. On the other hand, timid small towner Mary Kate Yarbrough was jilted on her wedding day, while brassy Brooklynite Una Yancy hopes to find a husband. They decide to join the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) in the United States Naval Reserve. They spend ten weeks of training in boot camp, checking out every eligible male and eventually each decides on a sailor to pursue.

Friday, Jan. 27 - Wife, Husband and Friend

Wife, Husband and Friend (1939)

The title characters of Wife, Husband, and Friend are Loretta Young, Warner Baxter and Binnie Barnes. Although given Binnie's actions in the film the characterization is open to interpretation.

Loretta and Warner are the proverbial happily married upper middle class couple, he in the contracting business and she the socialite with a dream of being a concert singer. Seems to be a hereditary thing, Loretta's mother Helen Westley had similar ambitions to the chagrin of her father George Barbier.

Baxter tries to humor her, but that only encourages and his humoring becomes an expensive proposition. Enter real opera singer Binnie Barnes who accidentally discovers its Baxter who's got the voice in the family. Baxter also attracts her in other ways. In the meantime Loretta's got Cesar Romero, a pianist buzzing around her hive.

Thursday, Jan. 26 - Woman in the Shadows

Woman in the Dark (1934)

Released from prison on parole, John Bradley plans to live alone quietly in a cabin in the country. He is visited there by the Sheriff's daughter Helen Grant, on whose account he had got into a fight and killed a man in the past. While he is trying to persuade her to leave, a beautiful disheveled woman in evening dress bursts in. This is Louise Loring, who has run away on foot from her rich protector, Tony Robson.

With a sidekick, Robson pursues her and the sidekick shoots Bradley's dog. Bradley knocks out the sidekick and Robson reports this to the local sheriff, who wants Bradley back in jail. Tipped off by Helen, Bradley and Louise flee to the New York flat of an old cellmate, Tommy Logan, and there fall in love.

Traced by the police, Bradley escapes with a bullet in his shoulder. Meanwhile Robson has charged Louise with theft in order to trace her and then tries to persuade her to go back to him. Since he is of a vindictive nature and she suspects him of trying to harm Bradley further, she agrees. Bradley arrives with Tommy Logan for a showdown just as Robson decides to murder his sidekick so as to worsen the case against Bradley. The two burst in and expose his plot at the last moment.

Wednesday, Jan. 25 - Calling Bulldog Drummond

Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951)

After three robberies are pulled off with military precision, Inspector McIver (Charles Victor) asks Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond (Walter Pidgeon) to give Scotland Yard a hand. As an ex-officer, Drummond knows how the suspected military mastermind would think. He agrees, though he very reluctantly accepts Sergeant Helen Smith (Margaret Leighton) of Special Branch as his partner, believing that women are not cut out for that sort of undercover work.

Drummond arranges to get caught cheating at poker at his London club so he can drop out of sight. Smith causes a minor car accident involving Arthur Gunns (Robert Beatty), suspected of being in the gang. Gunns' attraction to Smith and carefully planted evidence showing "Joe Crandall" and "Lily Ross" to be criminals themselves enables the pair to infiltrate the gang.

Drummond's friend Algernon Longworth (David Tomlinson), who has been kept in the dark about the whole matter, becomes convinced that all is not what it seems. He telephones Colonel Webson (Bernard Lee), a member of Drummond's club, to get him to postpone Drummond's disciplinary meeting. By so doing, he inadvertently tips off the secret leader of the gang. Drummond and Smith are taken prisoner.

Gunns' girlfriend Molly (Peggy Evans) convinces him to go ahead with the latest planned robbery, enough to set them up for life, despite the police having been put on alert by Drummond. She masquerades as Smith to give phony information to Longworth to pass along to the police regarding the target of the theft. Afterward, Longworth is tied up as well.

The gang steals £500,000 in gold being delivered by airplane. Drummond is able to overpower the guard and his friends before the gang returns. He knocks out Gunns (who has locked up and gassed his unsuspecting confederates nearly to death to avoid sharing the loot). Webson shows up and holds Drummond at gunpoint; he explains he got into the racket because civilian life turned out to be unbearably boring. The police arrive just in time and take him into custody.

Tuesday, Jan. 24 - The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre: The Man at the Carlton Tower

The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre (1960–1965): The Man at the Carlton Tower (Season 2 Episode 2 - aired July 1961)

This one opens with noir photography as Nigel Green drills out a safe and makes a jewel haul; but he kills a policeman making his getaway. Green has left no clues except his modus operandi. The frustrated Detective Superintendent (Allan Cuthbertson) calls in a retired cop (Lee Montague) who stays at the Carleton Tower because he too sought Green a year or so ago before leaving the force. Montague's character is rather high pressure at times or perhaps he was overacting. I didn't quite connect with all of his performance. At any rate, he takes up the reins of the investigation. He encounters Alfred Burke, who once was either a friend or enemy of Green, perhaps both. Then he encounters Green's wife, Maxine Audley, who knows who he is and says she hates her husband and wants to cooperate. Is this true, or is she some sort of femme fatale?

And so it goes with ambiguity pursuing Montague and he attempting to find Green. In fact, he starts getting more clues than Green has ever dropped before, leading him to wonder if he should invert all his logic.

Monday, Jan. 23 - The Defense Rests

The Defense Rests (1934)

Lawyer Matthew Mitchell is a brilliant, egotistical criminal defender who uses a wide assortment of legal tricks and an uncanny awareness of human nature to get his clients acquitted. Even Mitchell's usual opponent, district attorney James Randolph, admits that his reputation is such that the newspapers print the extras announcing an acquittal before the verdict is in on his cases. Joan Hayes, Mitchell's assistant and a lawyer herself, is disgusted by his underhanded tactics, especially in the case of Mabel Wilson. Mabel was arrested for the shooting death of her lover, gambling ship owner Ballou, and even though she is not guilty, Mitchell has her testify that she killed Ballou in self-defense when he abused her while she was drunk. Mitchell instructs Mabel to cry and show the jury her legs, and the tricks succeed in winning her an acquittal. Joan sharply criticizes Mitchell, telling him that his legal maneuvering has resulted in the unknown murderer going free. He responds, however, that it is the police's business to capture criminals, but it is his job to free them. Determined to find the killer and prove Mitchell's wrongdoing, Joan begins her own investigation into Ballou's death and discovers that the murder weapon belongs to Ballou's partner, Gentry. When Joan presents the evidence to Mitchell and threatens to have him arrested for perjury if he does not end his practice, he scoffs at her and tells her to go to Randolph with her findings. Mitchell's underworld connections then pressure him to defend a notorious kidnapper named Cooney, and, enticed by Cooney's offer of a $50,000 fee, Mitchell agrees. Even the pleas of Mrs. Evans, whose four-year-old child was returned to her dead after she paid Cooney a ransom, do not dissuade Mitchell from taking the case. The trial goes well, and just as it appears that Mitchell will win, the desperate Mrs. Evans commits suicide in his office to protest his defense of her child's killer. Shaken to the core, Mitchell finally realizes how morally suspect his law practice has been. Joan discovers that the money with which Cooney paid Mitchell's retainer is the marked ransom money, and Mitchell secretly gives this evidence to the district attorney after he resigns as Cooney's lawyer. Cooney is then convicted without Mitchell's gangster connections knowing of his involvement. Back at his office, Mitchell tells Joan to prosecute him for perjury in Mabel's case, but the enterprising Joan, who has fallen in love with Mitchell despite her antipathy for his ethics, has a different plan in mind. She proposes that he marry her, and then, as his wife, she cannot be compelled to testify against him. Mitchell realizes that he loves her and, agreeing to change his ways, happily accepts her proposal. The case of Ballou's murder is also solved when Gentry's guilt is revealed and he is killed by Ballou's allies.

Sunday, Jan. 22 - The Divorce of Lady X

The Divorce of Lady X (1938)

Trapped in London due to the fog, lawyer Everard Logan (Laurence Olivier) grudgingly allows the use of his hotel sitting room by a stranded partygoer, Leslie Steele (Merle Oberon). Charmed by Leslie even after she tricks him into giving up his bedroom and pajamas, Everard becomes infatuated, despite his suspicion that she is married. When Lord Mere (Ralph Richardson) engages Everard to file for divorce against his wife, who met a man at the hotel, Everard fears he may be the "other" man (actually, he assumes he is the "other" man).

Saturday, Jan. 21 - The Little Foxes

The Little Foxes (1941)

Ben and Oscar devise an investment scheme to build a cotton mill in their small Southern town and exploit the poverty and cheap labor in the area. But in need of $75,000, they ask Regina to talk her estranged husband Horace into becoming a partner on the deal. Regina invites Horace to return home, and the conspiring, villainy and back-stabbing begin.

Friday, Jan. 20 - Thriller: Letter to a Lover

Thriller (1960–1962): Letter to a Lover (Season 2 Episode 8 - aired 13 November 1961)

After the murder of a London doctor, emotionally disturbed Sylvia Lawrence secretly sends a letter to her ex-lover Donald revealing that her husband Andrew is holding her a virtual prisoner at their remote vacation home; Andrew claims to be protecting her but what is he really hiding? And why is he being blackmailed by the late doctor's nurse? And why question marks? Why not just tell us what happens for crissakes!

Thursday, Jan. 19 - The Silent Call

The Silent Call (1961)

When young Guy Brancato's parents have to move from Elko, Nevada to Los Angeles, California, they are unable to take Guy's dog Pete. Guy is angry at his parents and even more distressed when he learns that Pete has run away from the neighbor who was tending him. But Pete has plans to travel to Los Angeles on his own.