Tarzan of the Apes (First National, 1918)

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 …

The Great Hotel Murder (Fox, 1935)

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 …

Drums of the Desert (Monogram, 1940)

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 …

High Flyers (RKO, 1937)

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 …

South of the Chisholm Trail (Columbia, 1947)

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. …

Safari Drums (Allied Artists, 1953)

Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) becomes involved with a safari out to capture footage of wild animals and must stay with them, despite his condemnation of some of their behavior, because an unknown member of the safari had murdered a geologist and had stolen both diamonds and a map to a diamond mine. The contriving necessary to …

Outlaws of Stampede Pass (Monogram, 1943)

Federal marshal Nevada Jack Mackenzie (Johnny Mack Brown), working undercover, comes to the aid of the nephew of old friend Sandy Hopkins, who is now retired, when the nephew is cheated of his money and later ambushed after his herd of cattle is rustled. After Sandy is summoned, he arrives in the guise of a …