1930s

  • Alfred E. Green – Ride a Crooked Mile (1938)

    1931-1940Alfred E. GreenUSAWestern

    SYNOPSIS:
    A macho Cossack immigrant to the U.S. goes West and joins a ring of rustlers. Later his son follows him to states and he too begins stealing cows. Not knowing his father very well, the youth is anxious to prove himself a manly man and a friendly rivalry develops until the father is captured and imprisoned. Meanwhile, his son joins the cavalry and secretly engineers a break out. He succeeds and then feels terrible guilt, for it is his unit that has been assigned to bring his father to justice.Read More »

  • Ford Beebe – Red Barry (1938)

    1931-1940ActionAdventureFord BeebeUSA

    Quote:
    “Red Barry” was the 40th sound-era serial produced by Universal Pictures (followed “Flaming Frontiers” and preceded “Scouts To the Rescue”), and was based in the Will Gould comic strip distributed to newspapers by King Features Syndicated, Inc. It was the third of five serials from Universal starring Buster Crabbe, and while the plot only revolves around two million dollars in bonds and soon evolves into a game of “Bonds, Bonds, Who Has the Bonds?”, it has so many groups, and their armies of henchmen, acquiring and re-acquiring the bonds that, in a chapter or two, the people who have the bonds don’t appear to know they are the current holders. Wing Fu (Cyril Delevanti), brings the bonds to the USA to buy war planes for an unnamed county, and quickly loses them to Quong Lee (Frank Lackteen), a Eurasian underworld chief, but they are re-taken in chapter two by Red Barry (Buster Crabbe). Ballet dancer Natacha (Edna Sedgwick), representing a ruthless group of Russians, acquires them in chapter three, but Barry gets them back in chapter four. Read More »

  • Allan Dwan – While Paris Sleeps (1932)

    1931-1940Allan DwanClassicsUSA

    Plot : While Paris Sleeps is a grim expose of the European white slave trade. To save his daughter Manon (Helen Mack) from falling into the hands of a vicious gang of pimps, convict Jacques Costard (Victor McLaglen) escapes from jail. Jacques’ problems are twofold: he must keep Manon from being abducted into a life of prostitution, and he must also hide his true identity from the girl, who has been raised to believe that Jacques died a hero in WWI. The film’s gruesome “money scene” finds the white slavers disposing of a stool pigeon by incinerating him in a huge bakery oven! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideRead More »

  • Rouben Mamoulian – Love Me Tonight (1932)

    1931-1940MusicalRomanceRouben MamoulianUSA

    Parisian tailor Maurice Courtelin (Maurice Chevalier) goes to the chateau of the Duke d’Artelines (C. Aubrey Smith) to collect a debt owed by a spendthrift nephew, the Viscount Gilbert de Varèze (Charlie Ruggles), Maurice passes as a Count and interacts with other members of the household, including the nervous bookworm the Count de Savignac (Charles Butterworth) and the near-nymphomaniac Countess Valentine (Myrna Loy). But he falls madly in love with Princess Jeanette (Jeanette MacDonald) and slowly wins her to his side. Now, how does Maurice explain to her that he’s nothing but a tailor?Read More »

  • Frank Borzage – History Is Made at Night (1937)

    1931-1940DramaFrank BorzageRomanceUSA

    Wealthy shipowner Bruce Vail is insanely jealous of wife Irene, who divorces him for that reason. Vail schemes to get Irene in trouble with a hired gigolo; but passerby Paul Dumond rescues her, and Paul and Irene fall in love, much to Vail’s dismay.Read More »

  • William Nigh – The 13th Man (1937)

    1931-1940CrimeUSAWilliam Nigh

    A tough district attorney has been cleaning up the town, and has already imprisoned twelve dangerous criminals. As he is about to name the target for his next investigation, he is murdered in the midst of a crowd. The police have many suspects
    and hardly any clues, so two reporters decide to investigate for themselves.
    (Written by Snow Leopard)Read More »

  • Victor Halperin – Buried Alive (1939)

    1931-1940CrimeDramaUSAVictor Halperin

    A prison trustee rescues a despondent executioner from a bar-room brawl, and is blamed for the fight by a tabloid reporter who actually started it, and loses parole, becomes embittered, and gets blamed for murder of guard.Read More »

  • James W. Horne & Ray Taylor – The Spider’s Web (1938)

    1931-1940ActionJames W. HorneMysteryRay TaylorUSA

    The Spider’s Web (1938) is a Columbia Pictures movie serial based on the pulp magazine character The Spider. The 15-chapter adventure (first episode was double length) was directed by serial and western specialist Ray Taylor and comedy and serial veteran James W. Horne. It was the fifth of the 57 serials released by Columbia.
    The film was wildly successful when first released; it was the most popular serial of 1938, according to a tally published in The Motion Picture Herald, and was the first serial that Columbia brought back as a reprint (in 1947). A sequel, The Spider Returns, was released in 1941; of the Spider’s Web principals, only Warren Hull and Kenne Duncan returned in their original rolesRead More »

  • Victor Halperin – Nation Aflame (1937)

    1931-1940DramaUSAVictor Halperin

    IMDB:
    Believing they can make a ton of money, a gang of opportunists uses the country’s racial and ethnic tensions to start a Ku Klux Klan-type organization.Read More »

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