Jacques Tourneur

A heroic guerrilla group fights back against impossible odds during the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union.Read More »

This adventure yarn by director Jacques Tourneur is set in the French Sudan during the beginning of World War II, when the French Foreign Legion was doing battle with the Tuaregs. In order to bring a halt to the hostilities, a powerful Muslim religious leader has to make it to Timbuktu, the center of the conflict. In the meantime, an American merchant-adventurer (Victor Mature) is helping out the French commander of the garrison at Timbuktu, and falling in love with the commander’s wife (Yvonne De Carlo). Between the forbidden romance, the journey of the Muslim leader, and the angry Tuaregs, there are no dull moments even if the tension is not exactly unbearable.Read More »

Adapted from a novel by Louis L’Amour, Stranger on Horseback is one of Joel McCrea’s shorter western vehicles, zipping merrily along at a mere 66 minutes. McCrea plays a travelling judge who makes it his mission in life to clean up the town of Bannerman. This proves difficult, in that the town is virtually owned by the Bannerman family. But when the family’s youngest son (Kevin McCarthy) commits murder, McCrea vows to bring the boy to justice — and to see that he gets a fair trial, despite pressure from the Bannermans’ enemies. Czech-Mexican actress Miroslava makes one of her rare American film appearances as McCrea’s love interest; shortly after Stranger on Horseback was released, Miroslava committed suicide, allegedly as a result of an unhappy romance with bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguin.Read More »

Synopsis:
Dr. John Holden ventures to London to attend a paranormal psychology symposium with the intention to expose devil cult leader Julian Karswell. Holden is a skeptic and does not believe in Karswell’s power. Nonetheless, he accepts an invitation to stay at Karswell’s estate, along with Joanna Harrington, niece of Holden’s confidant who was electrocuted in a bizarre automobile accident. Karswell secretly slips a parchment into Holden’s papers that might possibly be a death curse. Recurring strange events finally strike fear into Holden, who believes that his only hope is to pass the parchment back to Karswell to break the demonic curse. Read More »

One of the most unique and fascinating swashbucklers of the studio era stars a commanding Jean Peters as a notorious pirate who captains a ship of plunderers terrorizing the West Indies, duels with Blackbeard himself, and exacts ruthless revenge on any man who double-crosses her—“the vilest-hearted she-monster that ever came out of the sea,” according to the suave French officer Pierre (Louis Jordan). Throughout, Tourneur fills every inch of the frame with teeming action and movement, emphasizing both the dreamy beauty of the Technicolor images and, as the proceedings turn increasingly lurid, the savage darkness at the story’s center.Read More »

Folks in Walsburg may want to pay heed to the brace of pistols holstered onto Josiah Gray’s hips. In time, they may want to pay even more heed to the Bible in his hand. Gray (Joel McCrea) is the newly arrived parson in the woodsy post-Civil War Tennessee town. And the true test of his strength will come when, during his greatest and most dangerous challenge, he sets aside his six-shooters and relies on his faith. McCrea brings a quiet resolve to this touching tale burnished through the recall of the pastor’s impressionable nephew (Dean Stockwell). Based on the novel by Joe David Brown (who would later provide the source novel for Paper Moon), Stars in My Crown shines with a powerful, simple dignity.Read More »

Is it man, beast or both behind a string of savage maulings and murders? An escaped leopard provides the catalyst for a foray into fear in which a cemetery is the rendezvous for death and love, and a closed door heightens rather than hides the horror of a young girl’s fate. The Leopard Man once again teams producer Val Lewton with director Jacques Tourneur (Cat People). This thriller stars Dennis O’Keefe (T-Men, Raw Deal), Margo (Lost Horizon) and Jean Brooks (The Seventh Victim).Read More »

PLOT: Former buffalo hunter and entrepreneur Wyatt Earp arrives in the lawless cattle town of Wichita Kansas. His skill as a gun-fighter make him a perfect candidate for Marshal but he refuses the job until he feels morally obligated to bring law and order to this wild town.Read More »

Producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur elevated the horror film to new heights of poetic abstraction with this entrancing journey into the realm between life and death. When she takes a job caring for a comatose woman on a Caribbean island, a young nurse (Frances Dee) finds herself plunged into a mysterious world where the ghosts of slavery haunt the present and Vodou priests have the power to summon the living dead. Sugarcane swaying in a moonlit field, the hypnotic beat of ceremonial drums, the relentless pull toward death—the otherworldly atmosphere of this bold reimagining of Jane Eyre is as close as studio-era Hollywood ever came to pure dream-state surrealism.Read More »