1930s

Synopsis by Mark Deming
John Barrymore plays a burglar and his brother Lionel Barrymore is the detective trying to catch him in this cleverly cast drama. An upscale thief who works under the name of Arsene Lupin is making the rounds of the homes of the wealthy and privileged, and Detective Guerchard (Lionel Barrymore) is determined to track him down. What he doesn’t know is that the suave and sophisticated Duke of Charmerace (John Barrymore) is actually the man behind the robberies. Will Guerchard find out the thief’s true identity before he can execute a daring theft from the Louvre Museum? Karen Morely co-stars as Sonia, the Duke’s love interest.Read More »

A father who received a dishonourable Army discharge hesitates to get involved with the formation of a youth group.Read More »

Manhattan gangster Pete Martin enters the trucking business in an effort to control the produce market. When he catches popular trucker Danny Jordan robbing the gang’s office to provide for his pregnant wife Nora, Martin forces Jordan to join him. As the other truckers come around Martin appears to have wonRead More »

(1937, Republic) Alan Baxter, Andrea Leads, Owen Davis, Astrid Allwyn. Captivating story of two brothers, one good, one bad. The good one becomes a lawyer while the bad one resorts to crime and ultimately…Read More »

Curt Hayden (Ralph Bellamy), a witness from the mob, is hidden away in a remote mountain cabin for his own safety. Accompanying Hayden is his young son Johnny (David Holt), who resents his father for planning to remarry. But Johnny loyally rushes to his dad’s defense when a pair of gunmen invade the cabin during Hayden’s absence. As the assassins await Hayden’s return, Johnny concocts a deucedly clever scheme to disarm them. This tension-laden climax is the best part of the picture, which otherwise is a traditional crime melodrama with romantic undertones. Plot Synopsis by Hal EricksonRead More »

A highly respected Irish cop is pleased when his son follows him onto the force. Unfortunately, the son is more interested in rewards than in upholding the law. When he shoots a child caught stealing, the others frame him and he is sent to prison where his attitude becomes even worse than before.Read More »

Europa is a 12-minute anti-fascist film made in 1931 in Warsaw, Poland by surrealists Stefan and Franciszka Themerson. The film is based on Anatol Stern’s 1925 futurist poem Europa. It uses collages and photograms, and articulates the sense of horror and moral decline its makers were witnessing. The film, while long thought to have been lost, is considered an avant-garde masterpiece.Read More »

In 1932, Michel Simon plays in “Boudu sauvé des eaux” under the direction of Jean Renoir.
Three years later, he was again invited to don the clothes of the famous tramp on the sets of Boulogne.
But it’s to shoot a film for advertising …Read More »

One of the very first Hollywood films that could be described as a noir, this brisk psychological thriller stars Chester Morris as an inmate who escapes from prison and hides out in the home of a famed psychiatrist (Ralph Bellamy). As the hostage doctor begins analyzing his captor and dredges up the secrets of his troubled past, the tables gradually turn. With its striking cinematography by Lucien Ballard and Freudian themes, BLIND ALLEY is an intriguing early expression of film noir.Read More »