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)”
Who is killing women around London and then mutilating the corpses by cutting off fingers? Sherlock Holmes suspects that this is more than just the actions of a madman, but if so, what is the purpose, and who is behind the fiendish actions? The case proves perhaps more thriller than mystery, as the viewer soon …
Read the full post →“<em>The Woman in Green</em> (Universal, 1945)”
A reporter (William Gargan) searches for a notebook, compiled by an investigative journalist, that contains information about people who were traitors during World War 2, while dealing with others out to get the same item, to protect themselves or to use for blackmail. Gargan’s character is a little too unlikeable, and the plot a bit …
Read the full post →“<em>The Argyle Secrets</em> (Film Classics, 1948)”
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)”
About 90 years ago, the July 25th weekly issue of the crime and detection pulp magazine Detective Fiction Weekly offered up a fair amount of entertaining stories, some purportedly true. T. T. Flynn’s The Garroters of Ghost Cove, the issue’s novelette, is a fast-paced story in which protagonist Bob Riley, breaking into an apartment, discovers …
Read the full post →“<em>Detective Fiction Weekly</em>, July 25, 1931”
A young rancher (John Wayne) who has inherited a half-interest in a mine, a girl (Sheila Terry) whose father lost his half-interest to a crook, and a gang led by the man who has that half-interest now all come to a ghost town in response to mysterious letters. Creepy doings follow, including mysterious figures skulking …
Louis L’Amour pens a contemporary mystery-thriller, albeit still in a western setting, with The Broken Gun, as an author interested in what happened to two brothers who had brought a herd of cattle west and then disappeared finds himself the target of those who know what happened and themselves have something to hide. Though he …
Read the full post →“<em>The Broken Gun</em>, by Louis L’Amour”
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 …
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 …
Read the full post →“<em>The Great Hotel Murder</em> (Fox, 1935)”
A police constable (Brian Reece) who dreams of being a plainclothes detective but is rather dim gets involved with a femme fatale, who plans to use him as the witness to the killing of a purported attacker. The story winds through several twists and developments, as the constable’s girlfriend (Joy Shelton) takes a hand in …
Read the full post →“<em>A Case for P.C. 49</em> (Hammer, 1951)”
