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)”
A bombastic radio detective, Bill Martin (Jack Oakie), with a dim view of the police finds himself the latest target of a “poison pen” killer. Is he up to the task of foiling the fiend? Can the woman (Ann Sothern) who loves him keep him alive and employed and on good terms with the police? …
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)”
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)”
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”
This plodding “thriller” has an indebted cousin plotting the demise of the rightful heir to the family title and fortune, to be engineered via an accident in Africa, but his plans appear destined for failure when, despite assurances from the man hired to do the deed, the heir shows up at home, healthy enough but …
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”
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)”
While visiting old client Sir Henry Baskerville, Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Wontner), aided by Dr. Watson (Ian Fleming), solves two killings and the disappearance of a horse. Professor Moriarty (Lyn Harding) and helper Colonel Moran are involved in the plot in this thriller, acting on behalf of a bookie who wants the favored horse to lose …
