Alibi drags reluctant Crash and Dusty away from their vacation and to the aid of a young man and woman, joint heirs to a ranch, who are facing crooks out to swindle them (or kill them) to get the property, which has oil on it. Although the boys try their usual undercover approach, they face …
Read the full post →“<em>Texas Trouble Shooters</em> (Monogram, 1942)”
Intrigue and adventure in French Indochina, with Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre) working as an archaeologist when the arrival of an American flyer (Rochelle Hudson) and two documentary makers (Robert Kent and Chick Chandler) sets the stage for a confrontation with those plotting armed rebellion. This movie has Moto once again adopting a disguise — and …
Read the full post →“<em>Mr. Moto Takes a Chance</em> (Twentieth Century Fox, 1938)”
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 …
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 …
After organized bandits attack a munitions train in Venezuela, the authorities turn to a potential secret agent as the man to get to the bottom of things and keep the bad guys from obtaining weapons and passing them along to rebels. This multinational production — original title: El hombre de Caracas — features a protagonist …
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 …
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ memorable creation, Tarzan, came to the screen in the person of Elmo Lincoln in 1918’s Tarzan of the Apes. Here we get the youth of the jungle lord and his growth to maturity and his finding of love. Both Lincoln, as the adult Tarzan, and Gordon Griffith, as Tarzan in childhood, give …
Read the full post →“<em>Tarzan of the Apes</em> (First National, 1918)”
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)”
Paul Dumont, a French Foreign Legion officer (Ralph Byrd) on his way out to introduce the troops to parachuting, finds love aboard ship, only to learn later that he has fallen for his best friend’s fiancée, Helene (Lorna Gray), making life a misery for him. When a failed attack on a Legion encampment results in …
Read the full post →“<em>Drums of the Desert</em> (Monogram, 1940)”
The final film pairing Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey (their career curtailed by Bob’s illness and death the following year) sees the boys as carnies tricked into helping jewel robbers with a shipboard heist, though their misguided flight ends up landing them right at the home of the rightful owner of the stolen jewels. Complicating …
