Mystery

  • Edward Buzzell – Fast Company (1938)

    1931-1940ComedyEdward BuzzellMysteryUSA

    Plot:
    Joel Sloane is a rare book dealer and part time detective. He finds stolen or lost rare books for the insurance companies and gets a reward for their return. But this is a little different. Otto Brockler, a rare book dealer with questionable ethics, has been murdered. The list of suspects is long.Read More »

  • George B. Seitz – Under Cover of Night (1937)

    1931-1940CrimeGeorge B. SeitzMysteryUSA

    Plot Synopsis:
    For a studio specializing in glossy soap operas, costume pictures and musicals, MGM made an inordinate number of “B”-grade crime thrillers in 1937. The first on the docket that year was Under Cover of Night, starring Edmund Lowe as intrepid sleuth Christopher Cross. This time the killer is an overachieving psychopath who strikes only at night, and is unaware that he is a murderer. Thus, the question here is not “who done it,” but rather — when will Christopher Cross catch on to what the audience knows almost from the beginning. The best performance is rendered by Henry Daniell as the respectable college professor who literally moonlights as the killer. MGM would resurrect the “Christopher Cross” character as a female private eye (played by Joyce Compton) in 1939’s Sky Murder. by Hal EricksonRead More »

  • Shahram Mokri – Mahi va gorbeh AKA Fish & Cat (2013)

    2011-2020DramaIranMysteryShahram Mokri

    Quote:
    A group of students decides to camp on a desolate Caspian region which runs a competition of kite flying during the winter solstice. Not far from the camp, live Babak and Saeed, two grim cooks. Armed with sharp knives, they roam the forest in search of meat to serve the decrepit restaurant they run nearby…Read More »

  • John Farrow – The Invisible Menace (1938)

    USA1931-1940John FarrowMysteryThriller

    Quote:
    Army Private Eddie Pratt smuggles his new bride into camp in hopes of having a happy wedding night. Instead they discover a murder. Colonel Rogers of Army Intelligence arrives to take over the case. The prime suspect, Jevries, is well-known to Rogers, who sets out to get a confession from Jevries even though there are plenty of other suspects. In the end, Eddie’s bride Sally surprisingly turns the tables on the culprit.Read More »

  • Larry Blamire – Dark and Stormy Night (2009)

    2001-2010ComedyMysteryUSA

    Quote:
    Writer/director Larry Blamire (The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, Trail of the Screaming Forehead) returns to the helm with this parody of 1930s-era old dark house films, presented in glorious black and white, and featuring every character stereotype and story cliché that kitsch fans have come to associate with these estate-bound frighteners.Read More »

  • Herbert Wise – The Woman in Black (1989)

    USA1981-1990Herbert WiseHorrorMystery

    Quote:
    With the recent passing of stalwart science fiction / horror scribe Nigel Kneale, it seems only appropriate to cover an unjustly hard-to-find title Mr. Kneale worked his unique sort of magic upon. Adapted by Kneale from Susan Hill’s 1983 novel and directed by Herbert Wise, The Woman in Black is a genuinely frightening, “old school” ghost story in the mold of tales told by M.R. James and Daphne Du Maurier.Read More »

  • Michel Subiela – Le collectionneur des cerveaux aka The Collector of Brains (1976)

    1971-1980FranceHorrorMichel SubielaMystery

    A young pianist is shocked when she witnesses a strange chess tournament with a robot. Could there be a gruesome secret behind this exhibition?Read More »

  • Rowland V. Lee – The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929)

    1921-1930MysteryRowland V. LeeThrillerUSA

    Warner Oland makes the first of four screen appearances as Sax Rohmer’s insidious oriental Dr. Fu Manchu. The film makes an effort to explain Fu’s hatred of all whites by showing the death of the Doctor’s family during the Boxer Rebellion. Twenty years later, Fu Manchu is a full-blooded villain using a hypnotized Jean Arthur to help wipe out the British family Fu holds responsible for the deaths of his loved ones. But when Arthur falls in love with potential victim Neil Hamilton, Dr. Fu is forced to add her to his death-list. Weakened only by the excessive “silly-ass Englishman” comedy relief of William Austin, The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu is a rapid-fire adventure devoid of early-talkie clumsiness.Read More »

  • Various – A Tale of Five Cities (1951)

    1951-1960DramaMysteryUnited KingdomVarious

    Another early Gina Lollobrigida film, also featuring Marcello Mastroianni briefly!

    IMDB wrote:
    An Englishman has been working in the US so long he now speaks with an American accent. He is drafted into the British Army during WWII but is injured and loses his memory. Because he talks like an American, the doctors repatriate him to the States where he is housed with a New York family. After the war they all travel throughout Europe, searching for the women he still remembers in the hope of restoring his lost memory.Read More »

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