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)”
Inspector Trent (Ralph Bellamy) returns in the third of four movies in the short series, and once again, though called in ahead of time by someone worried about a possible crime, he proves unable to prevent a murder. Gail Patrick does a fine turn as the title character, though the character’s viciousness leaves ample scope …
Read the full post →“<em>The Crime of Helen Stanley</em> (Columbia, 1934)”
While a researcher investigates reports of a tribe worshipping a tiger (trying learn whether this is true, and if so why, as tigers are not native to Africa), a government agent looks for a Nazi war criminal who holds the secret to some stolen art. Add in some crooks also after the art and a …
Read the full post →“<em>Voodoo Tiger</em> (Columbia, 1952)”
A soft-spoken yet sinister man (Peter Lorre) rules as a tyrant over an island where he brings parolees and puts them to work, keeping them as slave labor until they die. He likewise keeps his wife (Rochelle Hudson) a prisoner there, too. Will a federal agent (Robert Wilcox) be able to put an end to …
Read the full post →“<em>Island of Doomed Men</em> (Columbia, 1940)”
Oil is the focus in this Durango Kid outing, in which Steve Driscoll (Charles Starrett) comes to the aid of a wildcatter whose efforts to drill have been disrupted repeatedly, finally resulting in his entire crew’s quitting. Yet it seems that even Steve may be unable to help enough, as the crooks continue to thwart …
Read the full post →“<em>The Lone Hand Texan</em> (Columbia, 1947)”
A police chief responds to an ambitious detective’s desire for a promotion with the tale of a real smart piece of detection, explaining how Inspector Steve Trent (Ralph Bellamy) uncovered who killed wealthy Edward Arnold, and why. The murder takes place with Trent on the scene, summoned by Arnold because of his fear that he …
Read the full post →“<em>Before Midnight</em> (Columbia, 1933)”
When an unpopular member of their sorority is murdered, suspicion falls on the rest of the girls in the chapter, and, confined to a lodge where they had planned a weekend get-together, they begin to suspect each other as well. A decent premise is undermined by too many similar characters: save for the pledges and …
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. …
Read the full post →“<em>South of the Chisholm Trail</em> (Columbia, 1947)”
Dr. Robert Ordway resolves to take a rural vacation, doing some hunting and fishing, but soon finds himself in the midst of a typhoid epidemic — with woes in part attributable to an old-fashioned doctor’s resistance to modern methods — that has set the stage for murder as well. The story is a bit meandering, …
Read the full post →“<em>The Millerson Case</em> (Columbia, 1947)”
Mediocre Durango Kid outing has saloon owner Duke Catlett (Lane Chandler) plotting to push out the local cattlemen using large herds of sheep to overwhelm the grazing land. To that end, he also makes use of newly arrived Easterner Karen Kemp (Barbara Pepper) as a dupe to conceal his involvement; her brother, Rocky (Elvin Field), …
Read the full post →“<em>Terror Trail</em> (Columbia, 1946)”
