Thriller

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Directed by Tod Browning (Dracula (1931) & Freaks (1932)), this film features a host of character actors led by Robert Young as retired magician Mike Morgan, who now sells tricks to the other performers in his former trade (hence the film’s title). Frank Craven plays Young’s father, having just come to NYC to visit his son, and provides the film’s comic relief. Judy Barclay (Florence Rice) is being chased and comes to Morgan for help, whose assistance becomes the story, which plays out confusingly and frenetically during this picture’s 71 minutes. Henry Hull as Houdini-like Dave Duvallo and Lee Bowman (among others, some listed later) also appear in this Harry Ruskin, Marion Parsonnet, and James Edward Grant screenplay (based on Clayton Rawson’s novel).Read More »

Smash Palace concerns itself with the marriage of former racing driver Al (Bruno Lawrence, The Quiet Earth) and French-born Jacqui (Anna Jemison, Nomads). The pair had met when she nursed him back to health following a career-ending injury. They married, returned to Al s native New Zealand to take over his late father s wrecking yard business the Smash Palace of the title and had a child. But over time stagnation has set in, Jacqui s resentment of Al has grown, and things are threatening to spill over…Read More »

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Absorbing period melodrama set in 1890s Brighton about an autocratic chemist and public analyst who rules his wife, daughters and son David with iron discipline. David, whose attempts at romance are thwarted by his father, seeks solace in a pub where he becomes dangerously infatuated with landlord’s wife.Read More »

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The overnight stock crew of a local supermarket find themselves being stalked and slashed by a mysterious maniac.Read More »

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 »

The lovely Maria Teresa is unhappily married with the impotent lawyer Marcello. Maria Teresa’s marriage is contrasted by the passionate Valeria, who is killed during a chase. Is Valeria’s husband the murderer? Maria Teresa helps him…Read More »

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A mentally-disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.Read More »

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If you believe all-American Fred MacMurray as an Oxford don, you’ll probably swallow the rest of Above Suspicion. Newly married to Joan Crawford, MacMurray goes on a honeymoon in prewar Germany. Actually it’s more business than pleasure: they are secret agents for the British, attempting to smuggle back information about a new superweapon being developed by the Nazis. Evil, mean, cruel and also wicked German officer Basil Rathbone imprisons and tortures Crawford (though she still looks like a million bucks), but McMurray comes to the rescue, paving the way for a suspenseful race-to-the-border climax. Read More »

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‘Joe Martin, a quiet American, lives a quiet life in the South of France renting boats to tourists. He is happily married to Fabienne and has a twelve-year-old daughter named Michèle. But the quiet man has a past: ten years before, Joe (then Moran) had escaped with four other convicts, among whom the sadistic ex-mercenary Katanga. Seeing the latter brutally kill an M. P., Joe had abandoned his accomplices and left with the car. One night, Captain Ross, Katanga, Whitey and Fausto re-appear…
– Guy BellingerRead More »