Ursus in the Land of Fire (1963)
Ed Fury played the character Ursus in three sword-and-sandal movies, with Ursus in the Land of Fire (original title: Ursus nella terra di fuoco). Here, the strongman is leader of the shepherd people, whose territory is targeted by the ambitious Hamilkar, a general who, together with the lady Mila, has designs that go beyond merely …
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The Thin Man Goes Home (MGM, 1945)
For the first time since their marriage, Nick and Nora Charles head to Nick’s hometown to visit with his parents for a birthday vacation. Nick still chafes at his father’s disapproval of his decision to forgo medicine as a career, and Nora believes that a crime right there in Sycamore Springs will give Nick a …
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Model Trains, January 1960
For about a decade in the 1950s and early 1960s, Kalmbach published Model Trains alongside its flagship Model Railroader. The magazine, which had begun with a somewhat different title under another publisher, in this Kalmbach incarnation at least was oriented more toward beginners than MR and at least some of the time offered space to …
The Stranger from Pecos (Monogram, 1943)
My first movie of 2021 is the second in the long-running series of Monogram westerns starring Johnny Mack Brown and Raymond Hatton. In the early films, Hatton continues to portray Marshal Sandy Hopkins, the character he originated in the Rough Riders series, which ended after the death of Buck Jones in 1942. In The Stranger …
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Supplementing His Allowance
Rubber Racketeers (Monogram, 1942)
A gangster newly released from prison decides to take advantage of the government’s war-related ban on sales of new tires to get involved in the black market, including making counterfeit tires with a synthetic rubber substitute. When one of those tires, an early experimental failure, causes a crash that kills a young woman’s brother, her …
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Happy New Year!
Until Temptation Do Us Part, by Carter Brown
Easily my favorite mysteries by Carter Brown are those starring Lieutenant Al Wheeler, “temporarily” attached to the office of Sheriff Lavers. In Until Temptation Do Us Part, as so often happens, Wheeler is summoned in the middle of the night to the scene of a murder. The victim is a local real estate magnate at …
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The Dead Are Alive! (1972)
Alex Cord is a recovering alcoholic archaeologist excavating Etruscan tombs when a killer begins attacking people in some way tied to the dig, or to the family of an eccentric composer (John Marley) whose household includes the archaeologist’s former lover (Samantha Eggar). The movie is rather slow going in the middle, with weird behavior piled …