1931-1940

In Kansas during the Civil War, opposing pro-Union and pro-Confederate camps clash and visiting Texan Bob Seton runs afoul of William Cantrell’s Raiders.Read More »

FALLEN BLOSSOMS follows the inhabitants of a Kyoto geisha house as the civil war of the Meiji Restoration rages just outside their walls. Set completely inside the house, only female characters are seen on screen. AKA: FLOWERS HAVE FALLEN.Read More »

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“HANDS is an ingenious piece of propaganda that communicates not only through the thrust of its content, but through the very unconventionality of its “experimental” structure. The film suggests that the government that produced it is imaginative and inventive, open to new possibilities, and supportive of forms of free expression.” – Scott MacDonaldRead More »

From the blu-ray cover:
Henri Storck (Ostend 1907 – Brussels 1999) lived through the whole history of cinema, passing from silent to sound, and from experimental to commercial films. He is recognised as a pioneer of Belgian cinema and a key figure in documentary. Misère au Borinage, which he co-directed with Joris Ivens in 1933, has become a classic of the ‘cinema of reality’ with which he was most closely associated.Read More »

Behind the Mask is a typically virile Jack Holt vehicle, with the hero at one point shooting himself in the arm to establish an alibi! Holt plays a federal agent named Hart who has himself planted in jail as a convict to get the goods on a drug syndicate. Befriending small-time gangster Henderson (Boris Karloff), Hart follows the trail of clues to unmask the head of the syndicate, who turns out to be the supposedly respectable Dr. Steiner (Edward Van Sloan). In the rip-roaring climax, Steiner prepares to perform an “operation” on Hart, gleefully informing his victim that his chances for recovery are next to nil. Because of the presence of Boris Karloff and Edward Van Sloan in the cast, Behind the Mask was included in Screen Gems’ “Shock Theater” TV package, even though there’s nothing really horrific in the film.Read More »

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In this fictionalized biography, young Pancho Villa takes to the hills after killing an overseer in revenge for his father’s death. In 1910, he befriends American reporter Johnny Sykes. Then a meeting with visionary Francisco Madero transforms Villa from an avenging bandit to a revolutionary general. To the tune of ‘La Cucaracha,’ his armies sweep Mexico. After victory, Villa’s bandit-like disregard for human life forces Madero to exile him. But Madero’s fall brings Villa back to raise the people against a new tyrant…Read More »

Undercover agent Mark Sheldon gets paroled to a remote tropical island with a diamond mine manned by slave labor run by sadistic Stephen Danel.Read More »

Only Angels Have Wings is one of the most buoyantly entertaining movies in the American cinema. It is also a razor-sharp example of the action-oriented films of Howard Hawks, the wide-ranging auteur who would go on to make To Have and Have Not, Rio Bravo and Red River.Read More »

Former dance hall queen Cleo Borden, newly rich, falls for and pursues an upper-crust Englishman.Read More »