Author Archive: Retro

In a complex sci-fi tale set at some point in the not-too-distant future, an evil industrialist named Francis Turner (John Saxon) has created Paco Querak (Daniel Greene), a cyborg who is 70% robot and 30% human. Paco has been programmed to murder a blind ecologist whose environmental activism does not sit well with Turner’s bottom-line motivation. But once he is set up to do his job, the 30% human component in Paco only permits him to injure the ecologist, not kill him. With the local police (and eventually just about everyone else) after him, Paco detours to Arizona to look for his true identity. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

A boy learns about life and nature when he gets lost in the woods and encounters a kindly old hermit. Color.

Abner’s test results get confused with those of a sickly old man who is going to die in two weeks. Lum decides to cash in by advertising that Abner is a daredevil for hire. He’s going to die anyway, right?!

Romantic comedy about a sailor who must decide between his career or settling down with a cafe singer.

Josef von Sternberg made his first return to exotic Shanghai since 1932’s Shanghai Express in this baroque conflagration, based on a 1925 play by John Colton that required 30 revisions before it was sufficiently sanitized to pass muster with Hays Office censors. The film takes place in the gambling den of Mother Gin Sling (Ona Munson), who finds her casino threatened with closing by stuffed shirt English financier Sir Guy Charteris (Walter Huston). Gin Sling knows that the key to keeping her casino open is to dig up some dirt on Sir Guy, and it’s quick in coming. She finds that Sir Guy was compelled to leave China in a hurry some time in the past, stealing his wife’s money and plotting to kill her. Sir Guy ended up abandoning his wife in China and leaving her with an infant daughter. She also finds out that Sir Guy’s grown-up daughter, Poppy (Gene Tierney, is a [...]

After driving off the road, a couple turns on their hazard lights, but another car interprets this as a prearranged signal and a bag full of money is tossed from it into their car, leading to a series of tragic, greed-induced events.

While on leave, a sailor becomes the custodian of a baby and tries to hide him aboard his battleship. Written by Jay Lewis. Color. Dir. William Christy Cabanne.

Newill plays the protagonist in pursuit of a group of counterfeiters.