An efficient but unmemorable little mystery, The Spider stars Edmund Lowe as magician Chatrand (just a year before his similar role in Chandu the Magician, also from Fox), who becomes involved in solving a murder that occurred during the midst of one of his performances, There are both expected and unexpected developments during the film’s …
To Hell and Back (1955)
A war picture made memorable chiefly through the casting as himself of Audie Murphy, America’s most-decorated soldier of World War 2, To Hell and Back, based on Murphy’s autobiography, delivers the goods. Though in part perhaps standard for the era — e.g., in the quirks of the assorted members of Murphy’s platoon — the film …
Charlie Chan at the Opera (Twentieth Century Fox, 1936)
“Warner Oland vs. Boris Karloff in…” says the title card of this movie, easily one of the strongest entries in the long-running Charlie Chan mystery series, thanks to setting, cast, and resolution. Karloff plays an amnesiac opera singer who escapes from a lunatic asylum after recovering his memory that someone — presumably his then-wife — …
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Monogram Monday: King of the Zombies (1941)
The comic contribution of Mantan Moreland is the highlight of this otherwise rather lackluster Monogram horror movie. In it, a plane driven off course in a storm makes a crash landing on a small Caribbean island. There, the fliers — Mac (Dick Purcell), Bill (John Archer), and Bill’s valet, Jeff (Mantan Moreland) — find shelter …
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Monogram Monday: In Fast Company (1946)
The Bowery Boys (Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, and the rest) square off against a strong-arm taxi company on behalf of the independent hack drivers in this early series entry that benefits from a supporting cast including Jane Randolph and Douglas Fowley. The boys’ usual antics provide action and humor in a movie that zips right …
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Doctor in the House (1954)
Dirk Bogarde held a spot at the top in British cinema in the 1950s, in part thanks to this movie, a smash success in the year of its release (1954). The movie is the comedic story of medical student Simon Sparrow, played by Bogarde, who begins school at the start and finds congenial companions in …
Monogram Monday: Yukon Manhunt (1951)
Kirby Grant, best known as TV’s Sky King, starred as a Mountie in a series of 10 movies for Monogram Pictures that prominently featured Chinook, a dog who later played White Shadow in Disney’s Corky and White Shadow (and my dog’s favorite actor — the only one for which she pays attention to the screen). …
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Kadin Düsmani (1967)
A masked and gloved killer is stalking women in various areas of Istanbul in this Turkish krimi. Though the subject is sordid enough — and would fit in well with the Italian gialli of the 1970s — this mystery nevertheless delivers a reasonable amount of entertainment. Mildly recommended. Otto judiciously thinks this movie is OK. …
The Evil Karate (1971)
A fairly common plot — villains after a book describing secret martial arts techniques — doesn’t keep this movie from providing some entertainment. The vicious “Seven Monsters of Poison” are tasked with obtaining the book, but the man who is key to finding it temporarily eludes them, finding brief refuge with a household whose young …
The Biggest Bundle of Them All (MGM, 1968)
Limp entry in the caper genre has a gang of inept criminals working with a retired (and poor) mobster as he plans one last big score to recover his self-esteem and make it possible to live it up in retirement. The laughs are fewer than they should be, and though there are reasonable contributions from …
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