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)”
Ecological horror, as the depleted ozone layer causes animals at higher altitudes to go mad and become violent. Right in the middle of this is a group of high-country “survival hikers” led by guide Christopher George. And to say things go from bad to worse for the members of this little group, which includes Leslie …
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)”
Lon Chaney stars in this melodrama, based on a novel by James Oliver Curwood, set in northern Canada. He plays an earnest young man set up for prosecution for killing a man in a fight (he acted in self-defense) by the dishonest son of the local factor for the Hudson Bay Company; that son desires …
Read the full post →“<em>Nomads of the North</em> (First National, 1920)”
Snow takes the place of sand — at least for most of the movie — in this variation on the beach movie theme, with Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman as college kids who join a ski club outing in order to be near the girls they hope to romance (Deborah Walley and Yvonne Craig). The …
Read the full post →“<em>Ski Party</em> (American International, 1965)”
Buster Keaton at the height of his powers as a physical comedian delivers the goods in Steamboat Bill, Jr., the story of a soft young man from the East joining his rough but good-natured riverboat captain father (Ernest Torrence) and trying to make good. The comedy is terrific, both in understated ways — in his …
Read the full post →“<em>Steamboat Bill, Jr.</em> (UA, 1928)”
A traveling theatrical troupe that skipped out on its last hotel bill is forced by a storm to take refuge at an isolated castle, despite being warned against it, and there’s soon cause for them to regret their choice. Something strange is going on in the castle, and it means peril, but possibly also romance, …
Read the full post →“<em>The Playgirls and the Vampire</em> (1960)”
In Dance of Death (original title: Wu quan), a young woman (Angela Mao) convinces two rival martial arts masters to teach her their evenly matched techniques, so that she can use them to gain vengeance on the gang that murdered her friends. When even those techniques prove insufficient, the masters are able to develop a …
In this terrible Irish-Swedish co-production, a young man visiting the Continent after the close of the Napoleonic Wars is drawn to a mysterious woman who is married to a strange man who may be a vampire — or is she? A slow pace, poor camerawork and lighting, and unappealing characters really drag down the movie, …
