Nicky Nelson is a fast-talking sideshow barker with a wax-and-alive concession on Atlantic City’s boardwalk. Even with the band of his friend, struggling musician Gene Krupa, playing on the sidewalk to attract the customers, “The Living Corpse” and other low-rent acts aren’t enough to lure the seen-it-all boardwalk strollers, and the landlord closes the show in lieu of never-paid rent. Nicky, always promoting, goes to Stephen Hanratty, head of the pier’s Dance Pavilion, to plug Krupa’s band as an attraction, but Hanratty won’t even listen to them. But, while there, he meets singer Lily Racquel, who knows he is a phoney but might have the ability to to talk a radio-station manager into giving her an audition. She gives him a ring to help finance the project; he promptly loses it in a crap-game.

699MB | 1h 04m | 640×480 | avi

https://nitro.download/view/3CC21FC8A8E3E4A/Rhythm_Romance_(1939).avi

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The post George Archainbaud – Some Like It Hot AKA Rhythm Romance (1939) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

In order to give up her life of crime and go straight, renowned jewel thief Sophie Lang fakes her own death and retires to London.

686MB | 1h 03m | 640×480 | avi

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The post George Archainbaud – The Return of Sophie Lang (1936) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

RKO Pictures launched what could have been one of the great detective series in 1932, when Edna May Oliver starred in “The Penguin Pool Murder”. As Stuart Palmer’s elderly schoolteacher turned sleuth Hildegarde Withers, Oliver was one of the screen’s most liberated women, defying Police Inspector Oscar Piper (James Gleason) to track down killers with little regard for his pride or her own safety. Although Oliver left the series after only two more installments, leading to a serious decline in quality for the films, her first two outings in particular were years ahead of their time, thanks to director George Archainbaud’s uniquely visual narrative skills and for the films’ depiction of an older, independent woman.

Withers first appeared in the novel “The Penguin Pool Murder” in 1931, the latest in a long line of elderly female detectives that dates back to Miss Amelia Butterworth, a character created by Anna Katherine Greene in 1898. She would be followed by Rachel Innes in Mary Roberts Rinehart’s “The Circular Staircase” (1908) — better known by its stage and film title, “The Bat” — and Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, who made her first appearance just a year before Withers. Drawing on his background as a private detective, Palmer wrote novels and short stories about the character for more than two decades.

At the time RKO filmed “The Penguin Pool Murder”, they had the perfect Hildegarde Withers under contract, character actress Edna May Oliver, who had won acclaim for her supporting role in the Oscar-winning Western “Cimarron” (1931). As her partner in crime solving they cast another veteran, James Gleason. Their affectionate sparring was so effective the studio even had them get married at the end. Director George Archainbaud kept the action moving briskly, as he would on the Western films and television series he would specialize in decades later. He also added an innovation that would remain unnoticed for years; several of the sets had ceilings prominently featured. In that, he anticipated Orson Welles’ work on “Citizen Kane” (1941) by almost ten years.

“The Penguin Pool Murder” did well enough to inspire a sequel, “Murder on the Blackboard” (1934), with the same stars, director and writer two years later. Deciding that Withers and Piper worked best as friendly antagonists, studio executives decided to disregard their marriage at the end of the previous feature. Oliver would star in one more Withers film, “Murder on a Honeymoon” (1935), with Gleason but without Archainbaud. When she left RKO later that year, the studio would try to keep things going first with Helen Broderick and then Zasu Pitts in the lead. But neither was as perfectly cast as Oliver, and the series died after only six films. That hardly marked the end of the road for Withers, however. MGM adapted Once Upon a Train, co-written by Palmer and Craig Rice to team Withers with Rice’s hard-drinking lawyer detective John Malone, in 1951. But they transformed the schoolteacher sleuth into a Montana housewife played by Marjorie Main for “Mrs. O’Malley and Mr. Malone”. In 1971, ABC would produce “A Very Missing Person”, a pilot for a Hildegarde Withers TV series starring Eve Arden, but decided not to pick up the project. None of these pretenders to the chalkboard could compare to the original, however. Whenever “The Penguin Pool Murder” airs on television, it attracts new members to its devoted cult of fans.

The Aquarium seen in the film was the New York Aquarium in Battery Park on the southern most tip of Manhattan Island. It originally was a fort, Castle Clinton, during the War of 1812. It was later renamed Castle Garden and was an entertainment center, then an immigrant landing depot before becoming the New York Aquarium in 1896. Due to underground construction of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel in 1941, the Aquarium was closed and the animals were moved temporarily to the Bronx Zoo and then eventually to the new and current New York Aquarium in Coney Island in 1947. Saved from demolition in 1946, the Castle was restored to its original look as a fortification and serves not only as a museum, but the ticket office for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island ferry. The fort built to keep out the British now serves to welcome all to America.

957MB | 1h 5mn | 640×480 | avi

https://nitro.download/view/5EAB33073C8EF71/Penguin_Pool_Murder.avi

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The post George Archainbaud – Penguin Pool Murder (1932) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Thirteen women who were schoolmates send to a swami for their horoscopes. Little do they realize that Ursula, a half-breed Asian, is using her hypnotic powers over the swami and them to lead them or their families to their deaths. It seems that she too went to their school, but was forced to leave by their bigotry, and is exacting revenge. Will she be stopped in time to save Laura’s son, Bobby?

Review:
June Raskob (Mary Duncan) gets a horoscope and letter from Yogadachi saying she will cause someone’s death, and her sister dies in their trapeze act. Yogadachi (C. Henry Gordon) tells Ursula Georgi (Myrna Loy) he predicted happiness for June and hesitates to send another horoscope; but she persuades him. He tells Ursula she will have a horrible death, and she says he will die too. Then she puts him to sleep, rips up his prediction of love and motherhood, and sends a letter to Hazel Cousins predicting bloodshed and prison, signing Yogadachi’s name. Hazel murders her husband. Laura Stanhope (Irene Dunne) calls Helen (Kay Johnson) and tells Grace Coombs (Florence Eldridge) not to believe her horoscope. Grace reads a letter that Yogadachi will die by July first. Ursula entrances Yogadachi, and he commits suicide in the subway.

Helen gets a letter from Yogadachi that she will die by her own hand, and under the influence of Ursula she shoots herself on a train. Sergeant Clive (Ricardo Cortez) calls it suicide but suspects murder. Laura and Jo (Jill Esmond) wait for Helen and are joined by Grace. Clive comes in and tells them about Helen. Grace believes in fate, and Laura asks her to leave. Laura tells Jo she got a letter that something would happen to her son Bobby (Wally Albright). Burns (Edward Pawley) kisses Ursula, who says he works for her. Bobby gets a package of chocolate, and a chemist tells Clive and Laura it was poisoned. Clive goes to Laura’s school and learns that the round-robin idea came from the half-Indian Ursula. Ursula sends Burns with a gift for Bobby. Clive learns that Ursula was Yogadachi’s secretary and recognizes her photo. Laura takes Bobby’s presents to the police with driver Burns. Clive learns that Ursula bought dynamite and follows the car. Burns jumps out, and Clive tells Laura to throw out the package, which then explodes. Ursula finds Laura on a train and asks about her child. Ursula says she suffered as a half-caste and could not cross the color-line at school. She puts Laura to sleep; but Clive chases her, and she jumps off the back of the train, fulfilling Yogadachi’s horoscope prediction.

This violent story reflects fears of how the occult may cause deaths when it is grossly abused. Resentment from racial discrimination is understandable, but trying to get revenge by bringing about so many deaths is way out of proportion and just adds more misery to the world.

— Sanderson Beck (Movie Mirror)

http://nitroflare.com/view/0D7B7C9B92E4651/Thirteen_Women_%281932%29.mkv

Language(s):English
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The post George Archainbaud – Thirteen Women (1932) first appeared on Cinema of the World.