Author Archive: Retro

Deceased gangster makes a deal with the devil to return to earth as a kindly judge. Dir. Archie Mayo.

In 1194, on his return from the Third Crusade, Richard the Lionheart is taken prisoner in Germany. Disguised as a troubadour, Robin Hood formulates a plan to rescue Richard but he is captured himself.

Sailor goes undercover in a captured Nazi submarine to stop the enemy, and the Nazis don’t stand a chance as Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo are satirized in this Hal Roach Streamliner.

An unhappy married woman has an affair with a violent criminal. She gets pregnant with his baby, but he gets arrested and goes to prison. Now what?

Handsome actor can’t carry a tune, but uses a homely, hunchbacked singer to fill in for him…until the hunchback begins to wonder what it would be like to have the fame for himself. Dir. Phil Rosen.

Impressionable Jory Walden (Robby Benson) is orphaned when his alcoholic lawyer father, Ethan (Claudio Brook), is killed in a saloon fight in Santa Rosa, Calif. Hooking up with flashy gunslinger Jocko (B.J. Thomas) and sober-minded cattleman Roy (John Marley), the troubled Jory learns his life lessons on a cattle drive to eastern New Mexico. Though Jory shows a natural ability with a pistol, Roy tries to impress upon the hot-tempered teen that real men solve problems without guns.

Damon’s in black-face as blacks take on whites who take on Hispanics in this very entertaining teenage gang war extravaganza. Teenage punks slice and dice each other, turn innocent young girls into sleazy tramps, threaten innocent citizens, get involved in interracial romance, and sell drugs to local citizens. Whew! That’s a lotta trashy behavior for one movie.

Inhabitants of a New York tenement district gossip about the hopeless romantic living in their building, who is having an affair with the milk man while her violent, brutish husband is at work.

Inspirational story written, produced, and directed by Fanchon Royer, one of Hollywood’s pioneering women. Color. Dir. Fanchon Royer.