Author: womo

Street Scene is a 1931 Pre-Code drama film produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by King Vidor. With a screenplay by Elmer Rice adapted from his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Street Scene takes place on a New York City street from one evening until the following afternoon. Except for one scene which takes place inside a taxi, Vidor shot the entire film on a single set depicting half a city block of house fronts.

The movie stars Estelle Taylor, David Landau, Sylvia Sidney, William Collier, Jr., and Beulah Bondi (her screen debut). The music score is by Alfred Newman, his first complete film score. Newman composed the eponymous title theme, in the style of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

IMDb Rating:7.7/10

Stars: Sylvia Sidney, Beulah Bondi, Estelle Taylor
Director: King Vidor
Writer: Elmer Rice
On a hot summer afternoon in New York, Emma Jones gossips with other neighbors in her residential building about the affair that Mrs. Anna Maurrant and the milkman Steve Sankey are having. When the rude and unfriendly Mr. Frank Maurrant arrives, they change the subject. Meanwhile, their teenage daughter Rose Maurrant is being sexually pressured by her married boss Mr. Bert Easter. She does however very much like her kind young Jewish neighbor Sam, who has a serious crush on her.

The next morning, Frank Maurrant tells his wife that he is traveling to Stamford on business. Mrs. Maurrant meets the gentle Sankey in her apartment, but out of the blue Frank comes back home. He realizes his wife is upstairs with Sankey, and runs upstairs. We hear shots and see the two men struggling as Sankey tries to escape through the window. Maurrant runs out with a gun. He has killed Sankey and fatally wounded his wife.

Maurrant is apprehended and is led away by police. He apologizes to his daughter Rose, who will now have to take care of herself and her young brother without either parent. Rose’s boss offers once again to set her up in her own apartment, but she refuses. Then she sees Sam, and tells him she wants to leave the city. Sam pleads with her to let him go with her, but she tells him it will be better for the two of them to have a couple of years apart before they consider becoming a couple. Rose walks off down the street by herself.

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Terror by Night is a 1946 Sherlock Holmes film, the thirteenth to star Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce and was directed by Roy William Neill. The story revolves around the theft of a famous diamond aboard a train.

IMDb Rating: 7/10

The film’s plot is a mostly original story not directly based on any of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes tales, but it uses minor plot elements of “The Adventure of the Empty House,” “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax,” and The Sign of the Four.

In London, a young woman named Vivian Vedder (Renee Godfrey) verifies that a carpenter has completed a coffin for her recently deceased mother’s body, which she is transporting to Scotland by train. She boards the train that evening, as do Lady Margaret Carstairs (Mary Forbes), who owns and is transporting the famous Star of Rhodesia diamond; Lady Margaret’s son Roland (Geoffrey Steele); Holmes, whom Roland has hired to protect the diamond; Inspector Lestrade (Dennis Hoey), who is also worried about the diamond’s safety; and Watson and his friend Major Duncan-Bleek (Alan Mowbray). Holmes briefly examines the diamond.

Shortly afterward, Roland is murdered and the diamond is stolen. Lestrade, Holmes, and Watson learn nothing conclusive in questioning the other passengers, and Holmes is pushed out of the train, nearly to his death, but he climbs back inside and discovers a secret compartment in the coffin carrying Miss Vedder’s mother. He suspects that one of the people on the train is the notorious jewel thief Colonel Sebastian Moran. Upon further questioning, Miss Vedder admits that a man paid her to transport the coffin. As Watson and Duncan-Bleek join the group, Holmes reveals that he swapped the diamond with an imitation while examining it. Lestrade takes possession of the real diamond.

In the luggage compartment, Holmes and Watson find a train guard murdered with a poisoned dart. Meanwhile, a street criminal named Sands (Skelton Knaggs) incapacitates the conductor. Sands was hidden inside the coffin, and is in cahoots with Duncan-Bleek, who is in fact Colonel Moran. Sands and Moran go to Lestrade’s room, where Sands knocks him unconscious and steals the diamond from him, but Moran double-crosses Sands, shooting him dead with the same dart gun he used to kill Roland and the guard.

The train makes an unexpected stop to pick up several Scottish policemen led by Inspector McDonald (Boyd Davis). Holmes informs McDonald that Duncan-Bleek is really Moran, and McDonald arrests Moran and finds the diamond in his vest, but Moran seizes a policeman’s gun and pulls the emergency cord to stop the train. During a scuffle in which the lights are turned off, Holmes subdues and handcuffs Moran, then secretly hides him under a table. When the lights are turned on again, the officers leave the train with Lestrade, his coat covering his face, believing he is Moran. As the train departs, Lestrade captures the thieves in the train station, and Holmes reveals to Watson and Moran that he recognized McDonald as an impostor and recovered the diamond from him during the fight.

Directed and produced by Roy William Neill, written by Frank Gruber, based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, music by Hans Salter.

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Vengeance Valley is a 1951 American Western film starring Burt Lancaster, based on the novel by Luke Short.

IMDb Rating: 6/10

Fifteen years ago, wealthy but crippled Colorado cattleman Arch Strobie (Ray Collins), whose own son Lee (Robert Walker) is wild, took in young Owen Daybright (Burt Lancaster) as a foster son to help raise him. Now Owen is ranch foreman, but Lee, despite being married to Jen (Joanne Dru), is wilder than ever.

Unmarried Lily Fasken (Sally Forrest) gives birth but refuses to identify the father. After Owen gives Lily $500 to help care for the baby, her brothers Hub (John Ireland) and Dick (Hugh O’Brian) believe that he is the guilty party, unaware that he did so on Lee’s behalf. The brothers try to beat up Owen and he lodges a complaint against them. Sentenced to a week in jail, they vow to get even as soon as they’re out.

When Arch chides Lee for overdrawing his bank account by withdrawing $500 in gold, Jen realizes that Lee fathered Lily’s baby. She confronts him and Lee tries to lie his way out. She decides to leave him but is persuaded by Owen and Arch to stay. Lee inveigles Arch to make him a partner in the ranch by saying that he will strike out on his own unless he gets a half-interest and learns that the other half will go to Owen once Arch retires.

Jen locks Lee out of their bedroom. Lee gets drunk, mistakenly believing she and Owen are carrying on behind his back. He schemes to get rid of Owen and make a fortune at the same time by conspiring with Hub and Dick to ambush Owen during the spring cattle roundup. On the trail, Lee secretly sells 3,000 head of the cattle, planning to run off with it, but Owen learns about it.

Lee pretends to change his mind. He persuades Owen to ride in with him to stop the sale, but in fact he lures Owen into a trap. Hub and Dick, waiting in ambush, wound Owen as Lee casually rides away. In the ensuing gunfight, Owen Kills Dick. Hearing shots, a group of trailhands ride to Owen’s rescue. They chase down and shoot Hub. Owen catches up with Lee and tells him he is going to confess everything to Arch. Lee draws his gun, forcing Owen to kill him. Owen breaks the news to Arch and Jen.

Vengeance Valley (1951), Full Length Western Movie.

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Vengeance Valley (1951), Full Length Western Movie, Burt Lancaster. The black sheep son of a wealthy cattle baron feuds with his foster brother over inheritance of a ranch.

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Grave of the Vampire is a 1972 American horror film directed by John Hayes.

In the 17th C, Charles and Sarah Croyden were vampires hunted by the Church of England. In 1846, Sarah Croyden was burned as a vampire in Salem, Mass. In the late 1930’s, Caleb Croft [Michael Pataki], murderer and rapist, was accidentally electrocuted in Boston. Three years later he rises from his grave.

Based on the idea that Croyden and Croft are the same ‘man’, the movie opens in the graveyard where Croft awakens, kills a college student, and rapes the girlfriend. She gives birth to baby James Eastwood [William Smith] who prefers blood to human milk. Some 30 years later, James attempts to avenge Mom by seeking out his vampire father who has now become Adrian Lockwood, college professor of mythology. A few night classes, seances, and cold murders later, son exposes father and stakes him with a table leg through the heart. At this moment, son cuts his vampire teeth, and the movie ends with “The End–or is it?

The film is also known as Seed of Terror.

Several years after his death by electrocution in the late 1930s, ghoulish rapist/murderer Caleb Croft (Michael Pataki) rises from his crypt and brutally assaults young Leslie Hollander (Kitty Vallacher). Leslie becomes pregnant by Croft and delivers a baby boy, whom she nurses with bottles of blood. The child matures into the ruggedly handsome James Eastman (William Smith), who sets out on a mission to find and kill his diabolical father. Eastman enrolls in a college night course that his father is teaching as Professor Lockwood. Following a seance hosted by the professor for his students, James confronts his father in a showdown between good and evil.

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White Zombie is a 1932 American Pre-Code horror film directed and independently produced by Victor and Edward Halperin.

The screenplay by Garnett Weston, based on The Magic Island by William Seabrook, tells the story of a young woman’s transformation into a zombie at the hands of an evil voodoo master. Béla Lugosi stars as the antagonist, Murder Legendre, with Madge Bellamy appearing as his victim. Other cast members included Robert W. Frazer, John Harron and Joseph Cawthorn.

Large portions of White Zombie were shot on the Universal Studios lot, borrowing many props and scenery from other horror films of the era.The film made a substantial financial profit as an independent feature films of the time.

White Zombie is considered the first feature length zombie film. A sequel to the film, titled Revolt of the Zombies, opened in 1936. Modern reception to White Zombie has been more positive than its initial release. Some critics have praised the atmosphere of the film, comparing it to the 1940s horror film productions of Val Lewton.

Murder Legendre (Bela Lugosi) is the menacingly named zombie master of Haiti. So it’s to him that Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer) goes when he needs help for a twisted plan. Spurned in marriage by Madeline Short (Madge Bellamy), Beaumont has decided on a simple solution: kill Short and bring her back as a zombie. Then she can be his forever. The only problem comes when Legendre keeps the fetching girl for himself — and her new husband (John Harron) comes to Madeline’s rescue.

On arrival in Haiti, Madeleine Short reunites with her fiancé Neil Parker, with imminent plans to be married. On the way to their lodging, the couple’s coach passes Murder Legendre, an evil voodoo master, who observes them with interest and manages to grab Madeleine’s scarf. Neil and Madeleine arrive at the home of the wealthy plantation owner, Charles Beaumont. Charles’s love of Madeleine prompts him to meet Murder secretly in Murder’s sugarcane mill, operated entirely by zombies. Charles wants to convince Madeleine to marry him and solicits Murder’s supernatural assistance. Murder states that the only way to help Charles is to transform Madeleine into a zombie with a potion. Beaumont agrees and surreptitiously gives the potion to Madeleine. Shortly after Madeleine and Neil’s wedding ceremony, the potion takes effect on Madeleine and she appears to die. After her funeral, Murder and Charles enter Madeleine’s tomb at night and Murder revives her as a zombie. Drunk and depressed, Neil imagines ghostly apparitions of Madeleine and goes to her tomb. Finding it empty, Neil seeks assistance from the local missionary, Dr. Bruner, who recounts how Murder turned many of his rivals into zombies, who now guard his estate. The two men journey to Murder’s cliffside castle to rescue Madeleine.

At the castle, Charles has begun to regret Madeleine’s transformation and begs Murder to return her to life, but Murder refuses. Charles discovers he has been tainted by Murder’s voodoo and is transforming into a zombie. As Neil enters the fortress, Murder senses his presence and silently orders Madeleine to kill Neil. She approaches Neil with a knife, but Bruner stops her. Neil follows Madeleine to an escarpment, where Murder commands his zombie guardians to kill Neil. Bruner approaches Murder and knocks him out, breaking Murder’s mental control over his zombies. Undirected, the zombies topple off the cliff. Murder awakens and eludes Neil and Bruner, but Charles pushes Murder off the cliff. Charles loses his balance and also falls to his death. Murder’s death releases Madeleine from her zombie trance, and she awakens to embrace Neil.

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In this installment of the Why We Fight propaganda film series, we see the events of Nazi Germany’s diplomatic and military acts of international aggression. One by one, we learn of the Nazi’s consistently underhanded and relenting violation of every promise of peace and exploitation of their foes’s attempts of appeasement until the invasion of Poland September of 1939 which led to Britain and France finally taking an armed stand against Hitler.

Why We Fight is a series of seven propaganda films commissioned by the United States government during World War II to demonstrate to American soldiers the reason for U.S. involvement in the war. Later on they were also shown to the general U.S. public to persuade them to support American involvement in the war.

Most of the films were directed by Frank Capra, who was daunted yet also impressed and challenged by Leni Riefenstahl’s propaganda film Triumph of the Will and who worked in direct response to it. The series faced a tough challenge: convincing an only recently non-interventionist nation of the need to become involved in the war and ally with the Soviets, among other things. In many of the films, Capra and other directors spliced in Axis powers propaganda footage—recontextualizing it so it promoted the cause of the Allies instead.

Why We Fight was edited primarily by William Hornbeck and is among the best examples of stock-footage montage ever produced, although some parts were re-enacted “under War Department supervision” if there was no relevant footage available. The animated portions of the films were produced by the Disney studios — with the animated maps following a convention of depicting Axis-occupied territory in black.

The films were narrated by Academy Award winning actor Walter Huston. This narration, though factual for the most part, is replete with nationalist and racist rhetoric describing implacably warlike Germans and “blood-crazed Japs.” Conversely, it lionizes the courage and sacrifice of the British, Soviets, and Chinese.

At the end of each film, the quotation from Army Chief of Staff George Marshall that “…the victory of the democracies can only be complete with the utter defeat of the war machines of Germany and Japan.” is shown on screen, followed by a ringing Liberty Bell over which is superimposed a large letter “V” zooming into the screen, accompanied by patriotic or military music on the soundtrack.

Why We Fight also contains many scenes from Triumph of the Will when talking about the Nazis. .

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The Limping Man is a 1953 British Film Noir directed by Cy Endfield (as Charles de Lautour) and starring Lloyd Bridges, Moira Lister and Leslie Phillips.The film was based on Anthony Verney’s novel Death on the Tideway and was released in the United States by Lippert Pictures.

Stars: Lloyd Bridges, Moira Lister, Alan Wheatley
Director: Cy Endfield
Writers: Ian Stuart Black, Reginald Long

Former soldier Frank Prior arrives in London to visit a wartime girlfriend, whom he hasn’t seen in six years. His plane’s landing at the airport coincides with a fellow passenger being killed by a sniper.

Scotland Yard inspector Braddock and detective Cameron are assigned to investigate. The dead man, identified as Kendal Brown, is carrying forged documents as well as a photograph that leads them to Pauline French, an actress.

Pauline is the woman Frank has come to see. She also happens to be an expert marksman with a rifle. After they kiss, Pauline tells Frank that she had tried unsuccessfully to notify him to delay his visit.

An autographed picture of another actress, Helene Castle, is found in Kendal Brown’s flat. The detectives learn that Helene is the victim’s ex-wife. In the meantime, Frank spends a few hours with Pauline on her boat. When they later go to a pub, a limping man seems to menace and unnerve Pauline, who runs away.

Pauline confesses to Frank that she once let Kendal Brown use her boat for a smuggling operation. He began blackmailing her with letters she wrote, which Helene now possesses. At the theater, the limping man turns out to be George, the stage manager. But to everyone’s shock, the late Kendal Brown turns up very much alive. The victim on the plane was a man he’d hired to impersonate him.

After knocking the limping man unconscious, Kendal Brown ends up in a fistfight with Frank in the theater’s balcony. But as these events reach their climax, a huge surprise is revealed, one involving Frank and his fellow passengers from the plane.

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Santa Fe Trail is a 1940 American western film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey and Ronald Reagan. Written by Robert Buckner, the film is about the abolitionist John Brown and his fanatical attacks on slavery as a prelude to the American Civil War. Subthemes include J.E.B. Stuart and George Armstrong Custer as they duel for the hand of Kit Carson Holliday.

The film was one of the top-grossing films of the year, and the seventh Flynn–de Havilland collaboration. The film also has almost nothing to do with its namesake, the famed Santa Fe Trail, except that the trail started in Missouri and the railroad could be built only after the Army drove Brown out of Kansas.

The outdoor scenes were filmed at the Lasky Movie Ranch in the Lasky Mesa area of the Simi Hills in the western San Fernando Valley. One can visit the film location site, now in the very large Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve (a.k.a. Ahmanson Ranch), with various trails to the Lasky Mesa locale.
At the West Point Military Academy in 1854, the Cadet Carl Rader(who is an agent of John Brown) (Van Heflin), is dishonorably discharged for spreading anti-slavery pamphlets. His classmates Jeb Stuart (Flynn) and George Custer (Ronald Reagan) become second lieutenants and are posted to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory, the most dangerous duty in the army—an assignment they relish. On the way to Kansas, Custer and Stuart meet Cyrus K. Holliday, in charge of building the railroad to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and his daughter Kit (de Havilland), with whom both officers fall in love.

The Kansas Territory is bloodstained and war-torn, a victim of John Brown’s relentless crusade against slavery. Meanwhile, Rader has enlisted as a mercenary in Brown’s army, which has been terrorizing the countryside with bloody raids. During Brown’s attack on a freight wagon under the protection of the U.S. Army, Stuart and Custer capture Brown’s injured son Jason, and before dying, the troubled boy informs them about his father’s hideout at Shubel Morgan’s ranch in Palmyra. In disguise, Stuart rides into Palmyra, the center of the Underground Railroad, but Brown’s men spot Stuart horse with an army brand and he is captured and taken him at gunpoint to Brown (Raymond Massey). While trying to escape, Stuart is trapped in a burning barn but is saved as Custer leads the cavalry to the rescue and drives Brown into seclusion.

Three years go by to 1859. Believing that Brown’s force has been broken, Stuart and Custer are sent back to Washington, D.C., where Stuart proposes to Kit. However, far from being defeated, Brown is planning to ignite war by raiding the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. When Brown refuses to pay Rader for his services, Rader rides to Washington to alert Stuart of Brown’s plans, and the troops arrive just in time to crush the rebellion. Brown is then tried for treason by the state of Virginia, and hanged. The movie ends with Stuart and Kit being married.

The Santa Fe Trail (1940) – Full Length Movie with Ronald Reagan, Errol Flynn, Olvia De Havilland.

Stars: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Ronald Reagan, Raymond Massey
Director: Michael Curtiz
Writer: Robert Buckner (original screenplay)

The story of Jeb Stuart, his romance with Kit Carson Holliday, friendship with George Custer and battles against John Brown in the days leading up to the outbreak of the American Civil War.

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Mr. Imperium – You Belong to My Heart is a 1951 romantic musical drama film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, starring Lana Turner and singer Ezio Pinza. It was directed by Don Hartman who co-wrote the screenplay with Edwin H. Knopf, based on a play by Edwin H. Knopf. The music score is by Bronisław Kaper. Lana Turner’s singing voice was dubbed by Trudy Erwin.

In Italy in 1939, a European man calling himself Mr. Imperium uses a ruse to meet an attractive American woman, Frederica Brown. He eventually is revealed to be Prince Alexis, an heir to the throne and a widower with a six-year-old son. He nicknames her “Fredda”, so she calls him “Al”.

When his father becomes gravely ill, he must rush to be with him, but asks prime minister Bernand to deliver to Fredda a note of explanation. Bernand instead tells her the prince is gone for good, that this is his usual method of seducing and abandoning women.

Twelve years go by. One day in Paris, a cinema’s marquee makes it clear that “Fredda Barlo” is now a movie star. Fredda’s former love travels to California, where film producer Paul Hunter is now in love with her and proposing marriage.

Fredda decides to drive to Palm Springs to think about his proposal, as well as to decide which actor should co-star in her next film, about a girl who falls in love with a king. “Mr. Imperium” takes a room next to hers, and soon they meet and embrace. He explains the crisis that took place at home during the war and prevented him from looking for her. Now he wants a new life, and Fredda believes he could even portray a king in her film.

Bernand turns up, however, to say that his son is preparing to ascend to the throne. Mr. Imperium realizes he is needed there, so he must say goodbye to the woman he loves once more.

Director: Don Hartman
Writers: Edwin H. Knopf (screenplay), Don Hartman (screenplay),
Stars: Lana Turner, Ezio Pinza, Marjorie Main

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