Louis L’Amour pens a contemporary mystery-thriller, albeit still in a western setting, with The Broken Gun, as an author interested in what happened to two brothers who had brought a herd of cattle west and then disappeared finds himself the target of those who know what happened and themselves have something to hide. Though he …
Read the full post →“<em>The Broken Gun</em>, by Louis L’Amour”
When an unpopular member of their sorority is murdered, suspicion falls on the rest of the girls in the chapter, and, confined to a lodge where they had planned a weekend get-together, they begin to suspect each other as well. A decent premise is undermined by too many similar characters: save for the pledges and …
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ memorable creation, Tarzan, came to the screen in the person of Elmo Lincoln in 1918’s Tarzan of the Apes. Here we get the youth of the jungle lord and his growth to maturity and his finding of love. Both Lincoln, as the adult Tarzan, and Gordon Griffith, as Tarzan in childhood, give …
Read the full post →“<em>Tarzan of the Apes</em> (First National, 1918)”
When a guest meets his doom via poison during a medical convention at a big hotel, mystery novelist Roger Blackwood (Edmund Lowe) and hotel detective Andy McCabe (Victor McLaglen) extend their good-natured rivalry to competing to find the guilty party — and there is no shortage of suspects. Lowe and McLaglen, who teamed in 10 …
Read the full post →“<em>The Great Hotel Murder</em> (Fox, 1935)”
Paul Dumont, a French Foreign Legion officer (Ralph Byrd) on his way out to introduce the troops to parachuting, finds love aboard ship, only to learn later that he has fallen for his best friend’s fiancée, Helene (Lorna Gray), making life a misery for him. When a failed attack on a Legion encampment results in …
Read the full post →“<em>Drums of the Desert</em> (Monogram, 1940)”
The final film pairing Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey (their career curtailed by Bob’s illness and death the following year) sees the boys as carnies tricked into helping jewel robbers with a shipboard heist, though their misguided flight ends up landing them right at the home of the rightful owner of the stolen jewels. Complicating …
Steve Haley (Charles Starrett) persuades a group of ranchers beset by rustlers to make a combined cattle drive to Abilene rather than selling their herds for a pittance to local bigshot Big Jim Grady, but Big Jim has some surprises in store that may disrupt the drive — unless the Durango Kid takes a hand. …
Read the full post →“<em>South of the Chisholm Trail</em> (Columbia, 1947)”
In this bizarre post-apocalyptic movie that really owes nothing but its title to H. Rider Haggard’s classic fantasy adventure tale, Sandahl Bergman plays the leader of one tribe. As their goddess, she routinely kills those chosen in a ritual to be her lovers. Things change, however, when two brothers, whose sister has been abducted by …
