When a scientist experimenting with revivification brings a young man (Edward Norris) back to life after a car crash, something is very different about the boy. He soon is heading out of the house and taking up with a gang of crooks and proving himself a vicious member of the gang, even as he neglects …
Read the full post →“<em>Man with Two Lives</em> (Monogram, 1942)”
While visiting Paris for a convention and a vacation, Dr. Robert Ordway (Warner Baxter) is drawn into the case of a mentally unstable young man who may have killed his father in an argument over the young man’s marriage. Among the oddities of the situation is the fact that the family lawyer, though no criminal …
Read the full post →“<em>The Crime Doctor’s Gamble</em> (Columbia, 1947)”
In this, the sixteenth entry in the long-running series of Mr. & Mrs. North mysteries penned by husband and wife writing team Richard and Frances Lockridge, a noted palaeontologist published by Jerry North’s firm is being harassed by means of fake ads in newspapers claiming he wishes to hire, e.g., tree surgeons, the ads resulting …
Read the full post →“<em>Dead as a Dinosaur</em>, by Frances & Richard Lockridge”
The final Inspector Trent film starring Ralph Bellamy is rather a thriller than a mystery. A young woman out for thrills (Shirley Grey) helps a thief but soon finds she’s in over her head when the partners he was double-crossing come after the loot. Inspector Trent seems quite on the ball from the beginning in …
Read the full post →“<em>Girl in Danger</em> (Columbia, 1934)”
Dismal comedy from PRC stars Harry Langdon and Charley Rogers, here portraying hapless losers, fired from their jobs at a newspaper, hoping to land a big story on their own as reporters covering the invention of a new machine gun. The gun, of course, is the target of those who would steal it, and the …
A delightful comic entry in the 1960s heist genre, with Audrey Hepburn as the scion of a wealthy family that has its position through skillful art forgery and Peter O’Toole as the man whom she recruits to help her steal one of her family’s fakes, on loan to a museum, before an insurance evaluation can …
Read the full post →“<em>How To Steal a Million</em> (Twentieth Century Fox, 1966)”
The last of 16 Range Busters movies starring the original trio of Ray “Crash” Corrigan, John “Dusty” King, and Max “Alibi” Terhune (with Elmer) provides a reasonable amount of entertainment but offers nothing particularly original. Here, the boys are asked by an old friend to help put a stop to outlaws terrorizing a town and …
Read the full post →“<em>Arizona Stage Coach</em> (Monogram, 1942)”
A bombastic radio detective, Bill Martin (Jack Oakie), with a dim view of the police finds himself the latest target of a “poison pen” killer. Is he up to the task of foiling the fiend? Can the woman (Ann Sothern) who loves him keep him alive and employed and on good terms with the police? …
