Author Archive: Retro

A hat-check girl at the Stork Club (Hutton) saves the life of a drowning man (Fitzgerald). A rich man, he decides to repay her by anonymously giving her a bank account, a luxury apartment and a charge account at a department store. When her boyfriend (DeFore) returns from overseas, he thinks she is a kept woman.

A newlywed couple winds up spending their honeymoon night in an old, dark, spooky mansion.

Hyperactive public relations man for a Hollywood movie studio attempts to show his affection for his sweetheart by turning her into a star. Written by Joseph Santley. Dir. Joseph Santley.

Cape Town, South Africa during the height of Apartheid. A pickpocket gets more than he bargained for when he snatches a purse containing a secret microfilm.
Brolin plays a hard-boiled petty thief and “Jacky” Bisset plays a runner for the spy ring. Claire Trevor plays Sam, the connecting character to the world of petty crime and espionage.

A credit-card computer error results in three deaths and a traumatic confrontation between humans and machines.

Chaney in dual role as a detective and the deformed assistant to an international jewel thief. The detective tracks the thief to Singapore, then must impersonate the killer’s assistant to bring the thief to justice. Made slightly before “The Shadow of Silk Lennox”, this film is the first time actor Creighton Chaney began billing himself as Lon Chaney Jr. Dir. Fred Newmeyer

Naval officer Travis disguises as an enemy agent to destroy a spy ring in Alaska.

Richard Levinson and William Link serve up another Thinking Man’s murder mystery with the made-for-television Rehearsal for Murder. Playwright Robert Preston is on the verge of marrying glamorous film star Lynn Redgrave. But a scant few hours after her Broadway debut, Redgrave is found dead, an apparent suicide. Convinced that Redgrave was murdered, Preston contacts the most likely suspects and assembles them in an empty theatre, ostensibly to read through his latest play. But Preston locks the doors and uses his play as a means to, in the words of Hamlet, “catch the conscience” of the killer. Filmed under the working title Cold Reading, Rehearsal for Murder was the winner of the Edgar Award, a prize bestowed annually by the Mystery Writers of America. It was first broadcast on May 26, 1982.

Long standing rivalry between brothers escalates when one sets up a competitive cargo flying business and moves in on his brother’s girl. Dir. Sterling Campbell.