A brash reporter (Wallace Ford) investigates a series of murders in Chinatown that are in some way connected with the fabled 12 Coins of Confucius, while also doing some wooing. Bela Lugosi has top billing as the titular criminal, who also masquerades as a simple spice dealer. The plot is rather muddled, and Ford (and …
Read the full post →“Monogram Monday: <em>The Mysterious Mr. Wong</em> (1934)”
After six years as the East Side Kids (for a total of 22 movies), several of the actors who started out in Dead End moved over to the long-running Bowery Boys series. Live Wires was the first of 48 Bowery Boys movies made through 1958, and like many of the other entries, it provides a …
Read the full post →“Monogram Monday: <em>Live Wires</em> (1946)”
A surprising ending adds interest to this Johnny Mack Brown feature, one of his Nevada Jack McKenzie series costarring Raymond Hatton as U.S. Marshal Sandy Hopkins. Much of the focus in the picture is on the title character (played by Marshall Reed), a man involved with a gang of outlaws who sets out to cross …
Read the full post →“Monogram Monday: <em>The Texas Kid</em> (1943)”
Singing cowboy Jimmy Wakely is thought to be a gun-slinging desperado, the Melody Kid, thanks to tales told by pal Cannonball (Dub Taylor). Wakely is persuaded to fill in for an injured lawman to put an end to a crime wave and thus secure a town’s bid to become the county seat. Matters get even …
Read the full post →“Monogram Monday: Oklahoma Blues (1948)”
Likeable cowboy star Bob Steele is the lead in this unusual western, directed by his father, Robert N. Bradbury. It’s a lost-race tale in which Bob Harding (Steele) is framed for the murder of an archaeologist who possesses a map to the valley of the title, which supposedly contains gold, silver, turquoise, and opals. Harding …
Read the full post →“Monogram Monday: <em>Hidden Valley</em> (1932)”
A wandering cowpoke (Jimmy Wakely) who rescues an orphaned calf finds himself arrested and eventually sent on a work detail to a ranch whose owner (Kay Morley) has been facing difficulties from rustlers, sufficient to make it likely that she will lose her ranch in foreclosure. Jimmy and his fellow prisoners (including Lee “Lasses” White) …
Read the full post →“Monogram Monday: Six-Gun Serenade (1947)”
Jimmy Wakely and sidekick Lee “Lasses” White intervene when a rangeland dispute prompts an old friend to block a public right of way, even as crooks working for both sides of the quarrel hope to foment a range war and take advantage of the fighting. A rather unexpected complexity to the situation makes for an …
Read the full post →“Monogram Monday: <em>Rainbow over the Rockies</em> (1947)”
Singing cowboy Jimmy Wakely and his pal Lasses (Lee “Lasses” White) tangle with a clever crook, a big rancher who has tied up all the railroad cars needed by the smaller ranchers to ship their cattle, with an eye toward gaining control of the railroad and forcing his smaller competitors out of business, too. A …
Read the full post →“Monogram Monday: <em>Moon over Montana</em> (1946)”
U.S. Marshals Nevada Jack McKenzie (Johnny Mack Brown) and Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton) go undercover to investigate recent murders around the town of Springfield, including the killing of a rancher named Hilton, whose daughter happens to be traveling to town aboard a stage the bad guys try to rob, a robbery that Nevada Jack foils. …
Read the full post →“Monogram Monday: <em>Partners of the Trail</em> (1944)”
The boys tangle with phony spiritualists and Sach gets help from a real ghost (played by Lloyd Corrigan) in this enjoyable Bowery Boys outing. There are plenty of laughs for fans. Mildly recommended. Otto judiciously thinks this movie is OK. Movie 560 for 2021.
