Author Archive: Retro

Nora Moran, a young woman with a difficult and tragic past, is sentenced to die for a murder that she did not commit. She could easily reveal the truth and save her own life, if only it would not damage the lives, careers and reputations of those whom she loves.

A radio columnist is threatened by gangsters and later murdered during a broadcast. A detective sets out to find the killers.

Frankie Kelly is the soda jerk and embryo scientist in Midvales only drugstore. Two murders and an attempted killing suddenly swing Midvale into national prominence. Frankie and his pal, Jefferson, become involved when a wounded gangster starts to tell them where $300,000 in stolen loot is hidden, but he is murdered before he can give them all of the information. The search is on.

A cocky young pilot, at the urging of his girlfriend, takes a nice, “safe” job at the bank where her father is president.

Proof positive that Reliable Pictures’ Skull and Crown was filmed several years before its 1938 New York premiere is the presence in the cast of former silent-screen leading man James Murray, who died in 1936. The star of the show is Rin-Tin-Tin Jr., who among other things helps to break up a gang of smugglers. Another silent veteran, Jack Mower, plays the chief crook, but despite his bulk and muscle he’s no match for our “Rinty”. Nominal human hero Regis Toomey benefits greatly from the dog’s deductive skills, winning the hand of heroine Molly Day as a result. Allegedly based on a story by James Oliver Curwood, Skull and Crown is cheap and tacky even by Reliable’s unexacting standards. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Twenty-four hours elapse on the stoop of a Hell’s Kitchen tenement as a microcosm of the American melting pot interacts with each other during a summer heatwave.

A free-spirited college girl insists on carrying on her romance with a young mobster, scandalizing the town and going against the wishes of her father, the town’s most prominent attorney–and who has his own reasons for not wanting to attract too much attention to him and his family.

During a boxing match a fighter accidentally kills his opponent in the ring. Afterwards he finds himself falling in love with the dead man’s sister.

It’s bad enough that Clarice Kendall Andrews, Paula’s irresponsible sister, comes home from celebrating Mardi Gras and drunkenly mentions that she got married during the festivities. What’s worse is the fact that Paula knows that Clarice is still married to an equally irresponsible gigolo. Paula learns that the man Clarice married, Stephen Cormack, has skipped the country and his lawyer, thinking that Paula is Clarice, offers the older woman $5000 to annul the marriage. Paula’s lawyer convinces her to pretend she’s Cormack’s husband until he can get Clarice’s marriage annulled. Paula moves into Cormack’s house and discovers he has two teen-aged children who consider her a gold-digger after their father’s fortune. Meanwhile, Clarice’s husband refuses to have their marriage annulled and tries to blackmail Paula into giving him to $10,000 for his silence.