Plot & review:
From a successful 1940 theater comedy by Eduardo De Filippo.
Ferdinando Quagliuolo has inherited the management of a Lotto agency after the death of his father. He is also an avid player in search of winning numbers, in spite of his great bad luck.
One of his employees, Mario Bertolini, by contrast, gets winnings on winnings, prompting a fierce envy in his employer.Read More »
Stunning photography and Don Siegel’s direction make the most of an unusual overly melodramatic story starring Ronald Reagan as a scientist with epilepsy who goes to south Florida on doctor’s orders and meets a young woman, (Viveca Lindfors) recently widowed, who is haunted by the voice of her dead husband. Reagan rents her slightly dilapidated beach mansion and experiences several epileptic episodes, but tries his best to keep his condition a secret. Broderick Crawford’s role as an artist who lives close by verges on annoying as he goes on and on about art and life. Ossa Massen gives the film a boost as Lindfor’s scheming, jealous sister who tries seducing Reagan and later drunkenly blurts out his secret when she realizes that she can’t have him. The concluding hurricane arrives just in time, with all the main characters assembled for dinner in the creaky old mansion, and Reagan pushed to verge of suicide by the shame of his medical condition, while Lindfors begs him to reconsider.Read More »
One of 1941’s trio of great satires about filmmaking in Hollywood (along with Sullivan’s Travels and Hellzapoppin’) and probably the craziest of the lot. W. C. Fields wrote the story himself (under the pseudonym Otis Criblecoblis) and the film, which is coincidentally about W. C. Fields peddling a script he wrote himself to a frustrated studio boss (Franklin Pangborn), is probably the purest expression of his comic sensibility, starting with the iconic title.Read More »
Quote:
Wyatt Earp and his brothers Morgan and Virgil ride into Tombstone and leave brother James in charge of their cattle herd. On their return they find their cattle stolen and James dead. Wyatt takes on the job of town marshal, making his brothers deputies, and vows to stay in Tombstone until James’ killers are found. He soon runs into the brooding, coughing, hard-drinking Doc Holliday as well as the sullen and vicious Clanton clan. Wyatt discovers the owner of a trinket stolen from James’ dead body and the stage is set for the Earps’ long-awaited revenge.Read More »
A crime writer believes that a man imprisoned for committing the notorious “Flower Shop Murder” is innocent of the crime. He believes he knows who the actual culprit is, and sets out to befriend the man and get enough evidence to prove that he is the real killer.Read More »
A suicide attempt is investigated by a pair of female police rookies.
Peggy Knudsen … Dale Kent
Lynne Roberts … Madge Walker
Charles Russell … Lt. Rod Brooks
Paul Langton … Ed PoRead More »
From the files of Jerry Blake:
THE MASKED MARVEL.
Republic, 12 Chapters, 1943. Starring William Forrest, Louise Currie, Johnny Arthur, Richard Clarke, Rod Bacon, Anthony Warde, David Bacon, Bill Healy, and TOM STEELE as the Marvel.
THE MASKED MARVEL is almost universally recognized as one of Republic’s best. The action alone would be enough to place it in the top ten. The story deals with a wave of sabotage unleashed by Mura Sakima, a Japanese super-spy who employs former racketeer Killer Mace and other no-good turncoats in his evil schemes to destroy the American war effort. The World-Wide Insurance Company, principal insurer of the war materials, sends its four of its top investigators to stop the sinister sabotage. The Masked Marvel, mysterious foe of crime, aids the quartet in their battle, and it becomes evident that he is secretly one of the foursome. The Marvel is aided by Alice Hamilton, daughter of Warren Hamilton, the murdered head of World-Wide, and hindered by Hamilton’s partner, Martin Crane, who is actually in league with Sakima.Read More »
One of the best serials ever made, Spy Smasher has managed to find favor even among non-serial aficionados. Like his fellow masked avenger, Batman, Spy Smasher possessed no super-human powers but was a mere mortal of flesh and blood.
In brief, Spy Smasher, alias Alan Armstrong (Kane Richmond, and his twin brother Jack (also Richmond) pursue a nefarious German agent known only as The Mask (Hans Schumm). Witney and screenwriters Ronald Davidson, Norman S. Hall, Joseph Poland, William Lively and Joseph O’Donnell imbued their hero with a dark uniform very similar to the one he wore in the comics, but added a fancy belt decorated with a large “V” for “Victory” and the morse code symbol for the letter, three dots and a dash. The coup de grace, so to speak, was Mort Glickman’s signature score adapted from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.Read More »
