“Dark Journey” is a 1937 British spy film directed by Victor Saville set in the First World War. Its plot concerns two secret agents on opposite sides, played by Conrad Veidt and Vivien Leigh, who fall in love.
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Directed by Victor Saville, produced by Victor Saville and Alexander Korda, written by Lajos Biró (play and screenplay) and Arthur Wimperis, starring Conrad Veidt and Vivien Leigh.
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Source: “Dark Journey (film)” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 29 December 2011. Web. 20 July 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Journey_(film).
“Bubbling Over” is a 1934 American musical comedy short film directed by Leigh Jason.
Samson Peabody is the janitor in an apartment building where he and his wife Ethel live with a large crowd of Samson’s freeloading relatives. When more relatives come to stay, Ethel throws them out. A scheming occupant of the building reads Samson’s mail and poses as a clairvoyant prediciting the events of the letter; the arrival of Samson’s rich Uncle for dinner. However, the Uncle is a penniless lunatic (imagining himself to be The Emperor Jones) and a pickpocket. He steals the chicken of the dinner, several watches of the guests, the clairvoyant’s crystal ball and in the final scene, all the clothes of the people in the room.
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Directed by Leigh Jason, produced by Meyer Davis (associate producer) and Monroe Shaff (producer), written by Burnet Hershey, starring Ethel Waters as Ethel Peabody, Southernaires Quartet as Some Relatives, Hamtree Harrington as Presbee Peabody and Frank L. Wilson as Swami River.
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Source: “Bubbling Over (film)” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 21 June 2012. Web. 20 July 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubbling_Over_(1934_film).
“Catherine the Great” (also titled “The Rise of Catherine the Great”) is a 1934 British historical film based on the play The Czarina by Lajos Biró and Melchior Lengyel, about the rise to power of Catherine the Great. It was directed by Paul Czinner, and stars Elisabeth Bergner as Catherine, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Grand Duke Peter, Dorothy Hale as Countess Olga, and Flora Robson as Empress Elizabeth.
This historical drama recounts the events that led to the accession of Catherine the Great, Empress of all the Russias. The film opens with the arrival of Princess Sophie Auguste Frederika — whose name would be changed to ‘Catherine’ — from her father’s court of Anhalt-Zerbst (in modern Germany) to the court of the Empress Elizabeth. “Little Catherine” is to marry the Grand Duke Peter, nephew and heir apparent of the unmarried and childless Empress Elizabeth. Peter already displays signs of mental instability and a sharply misogynist streak. He rejects Catherine on their wedding night, reacting to something innocently said by his French valet, claiming that she used feminine tricks to win him over. In time though, Peter accepts her and they have a happy marriage for a while. Meanwhile, Catherine gains important experience of government from working as principal aide to the empress.
The empress dies and Peter becomes tsar, but his mental illness is starting to get the better of him, along with sheer boredom in the job. Catherine still loves him despite beginning a very public love affair with one of her best friends — until one night when Peter goes one step too far in publicly humiliating his wife. She ceases to love him, which enables her to be clear-headed in supporting a planned coup d’état. The following morning, he is arrested and Catherine is made Empress of All the Russias. The elevation is marred by Peter’s murder that very morning, contrary to Catherine’s command. Grigory Orlov explains that everything has a price, and the crown has the highest price of all. The film ends, with Catherine in tears on her throne, while the cheers of the crowds are heard outside.
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Directed by Paul Czinner, produced by Alexander Korda and Ludovico Toeplitz, written by Marjorie Deans and Arthur Wimperis, narrated by Alexander Kerensky, starring Elisabeth Bergner, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Flora Robson.
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Source: “The Rise of Catherine the Great” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 21 June 2012. Web. 17 July 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_Catherine_the_Great.
“Attack of the Giant Leeches” is a low-budget 1959 Science Fiction film from American International Pictures. It was directed by Bernard L. Kowalski, produced by Gene Corman, and the screenplay was written by Leo Gordon. The film is in black and white, and runs for 62 minutes. It was one of a spate of monster movies produced during the 1950s in response to cold war fears; in the film a character speculates that the no-no leeches have been mutated to terrible giant size by atomic radiation from nearby Cape Canaveral.
This film was also called Attack of the Blood Leeches, Demons of the Swamp, The Demons of the Swamp, and War of the Giant Leeches.
In the Florida Everglades, a pair of larger-than-human, intelligent leeches are living in an underwater cave. They begin dragging local people down to their cave where they hold them prisoner and slowly drain them of blood. One of the first people to be so taken is the local vixen, Liz Walker, played by Yvette Vickers. After a couple of gratuitous displays of flesh (Yvette appeared as the centerfold in the July 1959 issue of Playboy), and some running around on her husband (Bruno VeSota), Liz finds herself a prisoner of the leeches along with her current paramour. Game warden Steve Benton (Ken Clark) sets out to investigate their disappearance. Aided by his girlfriend Nan Grayson (Jan Sheppard) and her father, Doc Grayson, he discovers the cavern. The monsters are finally destroyed when Steve, Doc, and some state troopers blow up the cavern with dynamite.
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Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski, produced by Gene Corman and Roger Corman, written by Leo Gordon, starring Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers and Jan Shepard.
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Source: “Attack of the Giant Leeches” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 12 June 2012. Web.16 July 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_giant_leeches.
“The 39 Steps” (1935) is a British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on the adventure novel The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. The film stars Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. Of the four major film versions of the book, this film has been the most acclaimed. In 1999, the film came in fourth in a BFI poll of British films. In 2004, Total Film named it the 21st greatest British movie of all time.
Canadian Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) is watching a demonstration of the superlative powers of recall of “Mr. Memory” (Wylie Watson) (a man with a photographic memory) at a London music hall theatre when shots are fired. In the ensuing panic, he finds himself holding a seemingly-frightened Annabella Smith (Lucie Mannheim), who talks him into taking her back to his apartment. There, she tells him that she is a spy, being chased by assassins, and that she has uncovered a plot to steal vital British military secrets, masterminded by a man with the top joint missing from one of his fingers. She mentions the “39 steps”, but does not explain its meaning.
Later that night, Smith bursts into Hannay’s bedroom, fatally stabbed in the back, and warns him to escape. He finds a map of Scotland clutched in her hand, with a town circled. He sneaks out of the watched apartment disguised as a milkman and boards a train to Scotland. He sees the police searching the train and learns from a newspaper that he is the target of a nationwide manhunt for Smith’s murderer. Quickly, he enters a compartment and kisses the sole occupant, the attractive Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), in a desperate attempt to escape detection. She however frees herself from his unwanted embrace and alerts the policemen. Hannay jumps from the train onto the Forth Bridge and escapes.
He walks toward the town circled on the map, and stays the night with a poor crofter (farmer) (John Laurie) and his much younger wife (Peggy Ashcroft). The next morning, Hannay is chased by the police, wearing the farmer’s Sunday coat (given to him by the young woman). Hannay presumes that the only new resident in the town must be Annabella’s contact, whom she was trying to meet and tell of ‘the 39 Steps.’ Police still in pursuit, he arrives at the man’s house, and tells his story to the seemingly respectable Professor Jordan (Godfrey Tearle), who then shows that he is missing part of a finger. Hannay realizes his mistake, but Jordan shoots and leaves him for dead. Luckily, the bullet is stopped by the farmer’s hymnbook, left in a coat pocket.
Hannay goes to the local police, but they refuse to believe his story, since the inspector knows Jordan well. Hannay jumps through a window and escapes into the crowd. He tries to hide himself in a political meeting, but is mistaken for the introductory speaker; he gives a rousing impromptu speech (without knowing a thing about the candidate he is introducing), but is recognised by Pamela, who gives him up once more. He is handcuffed and taken away by “policemen”, who ask Pamela to accompany them. Hannay realises they are agents of the conspiracy when they bypass the nearest police station. Hannay is handcuffed to Pamela while the men try to disperse a flock of sheep blocking the road, but he still manages to escape, dragging the unwilling Pamela along.
They travel across the countryside and stay the night at an inn. While he sleeps, she manages to slip out of the handcuffs, but then overhears one of the fake policemen on the telephone; the conversation confirms Hannay’s assertions.
She returns to the room and sleeps on a sofa. Next morning, she tells him what she heard. He sends her to London to warn the police. No secret documents have been reported missing however, so they do not believe her. Instead, they follow her to get to Hannay. She leads them to Mr. Memory’s show at the London Palladium. When the performer is introduced, Hannay recognises his theme music: it’s the annoyingly catchy tune he hasn’t been able to forget for days. Hannay puts two and two together and realises that the spies are using Mr. Memory to smuggle the secrets out. As the police take him into custody, he shouts out the question, “What are the 39 Steps?” Mr. Memory compulsively begins to answer, “The 39 Steps is an organisation of spies, collecting information on behalf of the foreign office of ….” Jordan shoots him and tries to flee, but is apprehended. The dying Mr. Memory recites the information stored in his brain, a design for a silent aircraft engine.
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Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, produced by Michael Balcon and Ivor Montagu, screenplay by Charles Bennett, story by John Buchan, starring Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim and Godfrey Tearle.
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Source: “The 39 Steps (1935 film)” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 13 July 2012. Web. 15 July 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_39_Steps_(1935_film).
“The Man Who Walked Alone” is a 1945 American film directed by Christy Cabanne.
Marion Scott, honorably discharged WW II soldier, in “civies” and carrying a suitcase containing his uniform and medals, is hitch-hiking to the small hometown of a buddy killed overseas, intending to make it his home. En-route, he encounters wealthy society girl Wilhelmina Hammond, who is running away from her stuffed-shirt fiancée, Alvin Bailey and has taken his car without permission. Marion and Wilhelmina are bickering over a blow-out and an empty gas tank when the local cops appear and haul them off to jail on a car-theft charge. Wilhelmina establishes her identity and is released and, intrigued by Marion whom she suspects is a deserter, arranges his release also. She takes him to the Hammond estate and tells Marion, who does not know her true identity, she is Mrs. Hammond’s secretary. Wilhelmina has no keys to the home and they are arrested again when they are caught crawling into the house through a window. This time reporters and photographers discover her identity and plaster the papers with a story of an heiress running out on her rich fiancée to take up with an unknown stranger. Over the objections of the Hammond caretaker, Wiggins, she hires Marion as a chauffeur and stands her ground when her irate mother and angry fiancée rush home from New York with their entourage, including: Aunt Harriet, an old maid who had an unfortunate love affair during WW I; Patricia, “Willie’s” young and mischievous sister; Camille, the family dressmaker, and Champ, Alvin’s physical instructor. It becomes a battle of wills as Mrs. Hammond and Alvin are determined to break up a romance that doesn’t exist, as “Willie” and Marion are constantly bickering, and Aunt Harriet who is all for the pair getting together.
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Directed by Christy Cabanne, produced by Christy Cabanne (associate producer) and Leon Fromkess (producer), written by Christy Cabanne (original screenplay) and Robert Lee Johnson (screenplay), starring Dave O’Brien as Cpl. Marion Scott, Kay Aldridge as Wilhelmina Hammond, Walter Catlett as Wiggins, Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams as Champ. Isabel Randolph as Mrs. Hammond and Smith Ballew as Alvin Bailey.
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Source: “The Man Who Walked Alone” IMDb, Internet Movie Database. Written by Les Adams. Web. 15 July 2012. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037893/plotsummary.
“The Stranger” (1946) is an American film noir directed by Orson Welles and starring Welles, Edward G. Robinson, and Loretta Young. The film was based on an Oscar-nominated screenplay written by Victor Trivas. Sam Spiegel was the film’s producer, and the film’s musical score is by Bronisław Kaper. It is believed that this is the first film released after World War II that showed footage of concentration camps. The film was made by International Pictures, and released by RKO Radio Pictures.
In 1946, Mr. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson) of the United Nations War Crimes Commission is hunting for Nazi fugitive Franz Kindler (Orson Welles), a war criminal who has erased all evidence which might identify him. He has assumed a new identity, Charles Rankin, and has become a prep school teacher in a small town in the United States. He has married Mary Longstreet (Loretta Young), daughter of Supreme Court Justice Adam Longstreet (Philip Merivale).
Wilson releases Kindler’s former associate Meinike (Konstantin Shayne), hoping the man will lead him to Kindler. Wilson follows Meinike to the town of Harper, Connecticut, but loses him before he meets with Kindler. When Kindler/Rankin and Meinike do meet, Meinike, who is repentant, begs Kindler to confess his crimes. Instead, Kindler strangles Meinike, who might expose him. Eventually, Wilson deduces that Rankin is Kindler, but not having witnessed the meeting with Meinike, he has no proof. Only Mrs. Rankin knows that Meinike came to meet her husband. To get her to admit this, Wilson must convince her that her husband is a criminal – before Rankin decides to eliminate the threat to him by killing her. Rankin’s pose begins to unravel when Red, the family dog, discovers Meinike’s body. To protect his secret, Rankin poisons Red.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Rankin begins to suspect her husband, but is too blinded by love to accept the facts. She is torn between her desire to learn the truth about him, and the idea of helping him create his new life. Mr. Wilson shows her graphic footage of Nazi concentration camps, and explains how Kindler/Rankin developed the idea of genocide. But not until Mary discovers Rankin’s plot to kill her does she finally break down. In a tense moment, she dares Rankin to kill her. Rankin tries to, but is prevented by Wilson and Mary’s brother Noah. Pursued by them, he flees into a church belfry, and falls to his death.
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Directed by Orson Welles, produced by Sam Spiegel (as S. P. Eagle), written by Anthony Veiller, Victor Trivas, Decla Dunning, John Huston and Orson Welles, starring Orson Welles, Loretta Young and Edward G. Robinson.
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Source: “The Stranger (1946 film)” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 6 July 2012. Web. 9 July 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_(1946_film).
The Chase (1946) is an American film noir, shot in black and white, directed by Arthur Ripley. The screenplay (adapted by Philip Yordan) is based on the Cornell Woolrich novel The Black Path of Fear.
This dream-like film noir is about Chuck Scott (Robert Cummings), a World War II vet now a penniless drifter tormented by bizarre dreams, who takes a job as driver to Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran), a vicious gangster. Roman tests his new driver, Scott, by assuming control of his car from the back seat. Unbeknownst to Scott, Roman has an accelerator installed in the rear passenger compartment so that he can “take over” the vehicle whenever he wants. This bizarre trick not only unnerves his new driver but also Roman’s right-hand man, Gino (Peter Lorre).
Scott passes the test and gets the job. But things get tough for Scott when he falls in love with the gangster’s wife, Lorna (Michele Morgan), who has attempted to kill herself because life has become unbearable with her sadistic husband. The two run off together to Cuba and a bizarre chase begins wherein Scott is framed for a murder and must therefore avoid both Roman and the police. Finally, at a point when Scott is able to clear his name, he is thrown back into the nightmare in a surprising twist.
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Directed by Arthur Ripley, produced by Seymour Nebenzal, screenplay by Philip Yordan, story by Cornell Woolrich (novel “The Black Path of Fear”), starring Robert Cummings, Michèle Morgan, Steve Cochran.
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Source: “The Chase (1946 film)” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 21 June 2012. Web. 7 July 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(1946_film).
Jungle Book is an American color action-adventure film from 1942 based on the famous Rudyard Kipling book. The film was directed by the Hungarian Zoltán Korda based on a screenplay adaptation by Laurence Stallings. The cinematography was by Lee Garmes and W. Howard Greene and music by Miklós Rózsa. The film starred Sabu Dastagir as Mowgli. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards including “Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration”, “Color” for the director’s brother, Vincent Korda and creative partner Julia Heron. This film was the first one in history with a separate released soundtrack on vinyl.
Teenaged Mowgli, who was raised by wolves, appears in a village in India and is adopted by Messua. During this time Mowgli learns human language and some human ways quickly, though keeping jungle ideas and experiences. The influential merchant Buldeo is bigoted against “beasts” including Mowgli; not so Buldeo’s pretty daughter, whom Mowgli takes on a jungle tour where they find a treasure, setting the evil of human greed in motion.
The Woman in Green is a 1945 American Sherlock Holmes film starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson, with Hillary Brooke as the woman of the title and Henry Daniell as Professor Moriarty. The film is not credited as an adaptation of any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes tales, but several of its scenes are taken from “The Final Problem” and “The Adventure of the Empty House.”
When several women are murdered and their forefingers severed, Holmes and Watson are called into action, but Holmes is baffled by the crimes at the start. Widower Sir George Fenwick (Paul Cavanagh), after a romantic night alone with his girlfriend Lydia Marlowe (Hillary Brooke), is hypnotized into believing that he is responsible for the crimes. He is certain that he is guilty after he awakes from a stupor and finds a woman’s forefinger in his pocket. His daughter comes to Holmes and Watson without realizing that Moriarty’s henchman is following her. She tells Holmes and Watson that she found her father burying a forefinger under a pile of soil. She has dug up the forefinger and shows it to them.
Fenwick is then found dead, obviously murdered by someone to keep him from talking. Holmes theorizes that Moriarty, who was supposed to have been hanged in Montevideo, is alive and responsible for the crimes. Watson is then called to help a woman who fell over while feeding her pet bird. He leaves, and minutes later, Moriarty appears and explains that he faked the phone call so he could talk to Holmes. He then leans one of the chairs back, obviously signaling someone. Holmes sees an open window in an empty house. When Moriarty leaves, Watson arrives. Holmes explains what Moriarty did, notices that a window shade that was shut in the empty house is now open, and tells Watson to investigate.
Inside the empty house Watson, looking through the window, believes that he sees a sniper shoot Holmes in his apartment. Holmes then appears at the house and explains that he put a bust of Julius Caesar there because of the bust’s resemblance to his own face (Holmes realized that as soon as he sat there, Moriarty would have him killed). Inspector Gregson takes the sniper, a hypnotized ex-soldier, away, but the sniper is later killed on Holmes’s doorstep.
Holmes now realizes that Moriarty’s plan involves: 1) killing women and cutting off their forefingers, 2) making rich, single men believe they have committed the crime, 3) using this fake information to blackmail them, and 4) counting on the victims being too terrified to expose the scheme.
He befriends Lydia, whom he had seen with Sir George at a restaurant, suspecting that is she in cahoots with Moriarty. She takes him to her house, where he is apparently hypnotized. Moriarty enters and has one of his men cut Holmes with a knife to verify that he is hypnotized. He then tells Holmes to write a suicide note (which he does), walk out of Lydia’s apartment onto the ledge, and jump to his death.
Watson and the police then appear and grab the criminals. Holmes then reveals he was never really hypnotized, but secretly ingested a drug to make him appear as if he had been hypnotized and also insensitive to pain. Moriarty then escapes from the hold of a policeman and jumps from the top of Lydia’s house to another building. However, he hangs onto a pipe which becomes loose from the building, causing him to fall to his death.
This is the third Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes film in which Moriarty dies. In all three films, he falls to his death. He is always presumed dead until he turns up in the next film.
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Directed and produced by Roy William Neill, written by Bertram Millhauser, based on characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, music by Mark Levant.
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Source: “The Woman in Green” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 22 June 2012. Web. 1 July 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woman_in_Green.