The final Range Busters movie with the lineup of John “Dusty” King, David Sharpe, and Max “Alibi” Terhune, and the 20th overall, Haunted Ranch has one of my favorite plot devices — apparent hauntings — but falls rather short of the earlier ghost town movie in the series, Trail of the Silver Spurs. Here, both …
Read the full post →“<em>Haunted Ranch</em> (Monogram, 1943)”
John Bentley is the Honourable Richard Rollison, aka the Toff, an aristocratic adventurer quite similar to the Saint, but who was featured in nearly 60 novels by the prolific John Creasey. Here, a secretary asks the Toff to find her missing boss, and various complications — including murder — ensue. Unfortunately, the movie isn’t particularly …
Pilot Jim Clark (Richard Arlen) and the stewardess who loves him, Shirley Brooks (Jean Parker) start an independent airline of their own, conveying couples to Las Vegas to get married and see the town on a whirlwind visit. It’s clear that Shirley hopes all these matrimonial trips will spur Jim to do something along those …
Read the full post →“<em>Flying Blind</em> (Paramount, 1941)”
When a small band of people is shipwrecked on an uncharted island, they soon find themselves facing a greater menace than isolation and survival against the elements: the island is ruled over by a Nazi scientist who escaped after the war and continues his experiments on some captive women in an effort to find a …
In this sequel to the aptly named The Frog, both movies based on works by Edgar Wallace, a ruthless master criminal who uses a radio in a porcelain frog to communicate with his underlings proves to be still at large, and still dangerous, and Inspector Elk (Gordon Harker) is once again called upon to battle …
Read the full post →“<em>Return of the Frog</em> (British Lion, 1938)”
Hollywood fix-it expert Rick Holman is hired to discreetly track down a German starlet who has disappeared right after signing a big contract: if she doesn’t show, it’s likely to break the agency that is promoting her. Holman’s investigation takes him to Europe and back and nearly costs him his life as he digs up …
Read the full post →“<em>The Girl from Outer Space</em>, by Carter Brown”
Sherlock Holmes is hired to protect the famous gem the Star of Rhodesia, and he and Watson travel with its owner on a Scotland-bound train. When a murderer strikes and the stone disappears, Holmes must sort through a car-full of suspects to unravel the mystery. The pacing is good on this one, and there’s a …
Read the full post →“<em>Terror by Night</em> (Universal, 1946)”
A visit to the “Flash Model Train Meet” in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, on March 27 netted me this well-built Ambroid passenger car kit for an open-platform coach of late-nineteenth-century vintage. If I recall correctly, the Ambroid kit is based on a Boston & Maine prototype. The built-up car will need a few adjustments: new couplers, a …
This movie is a bit different from the Johnny Mack Brown movies from Monogram that I’ve been watching. Here he is not U.S. Marshal Nevada Jack McKenzie. Rather, he is a doctor, a man who used to wield his guns but did so in error once and put them aside. He tries to steer clear …
Read the full post →“<em>Flame of the West</em> (Monogram, 1945)”
