Author Archive: Retro

Police hunt for a husband and wife team posing as brother and sister, who con wealthy widows then murder them. Dir. George Blair

A young boxer is taken under the wing of a fight promoter and readied for a match with the champ. Based on Hal Fisher’s comic strip. AKA “Palooka”.

An artist meets two sisters who live on a barge.

Life on a British bomber base, and the surrounding towns, from the opening days of the Battle of Britain, to the arrival of the Americans, who join in the bomber offensive. The film centres around Pilot Officer Peter Penrose, fresh out of a training unit, who joins the squadron, and quickly discovers about life during war time. He falls for Iris, a young girl who lives at the local hotel, but he becomes disillusioned about marriage, when the squadron commander dies in a raid, and leaves his wife, the hotel manageress, with a young son to bring up. As the war progresses, Penross comes to terms that he has survived, while others have been killed.

Dir. Visconti. Documentary-like narrative of poor Sicilian fishers whom are exploited by fish wholesalers. One of the families is trying to escape them by being their own boss. But fate nobody helps them, and even fate is against them. Played by real sicilian fishers, filmed on location in the Sicilian dialect.

Ruth Ashley (Betty Compson) and oily Gregory Stone (Wheeler Oakman) operate the Hollywood Escort Bureau. Ruth was a former escort girl but has worked up way up through the ranks and is now a partner in the business. Ruth’s earnings have provided the funds to send her beautiful daughter, June (Margaret Marquis), to the most exclusive schools. June is not aware they her ever-loving mother is engaged in the nefarious business of supplying call-girls to lonely men. June comes home and announces she is engaged to marry Drake Hamilton (Robert Kellard), who is a special investigator for the district attorney. Drake is a good investigator and soon learns that his mother-in-law to be is running an escort bureau. He makes her promise to give up the business and promises not to tell June. But Gregory fears Drake will put an end to his operation. Drake, working undercover, calls the bureau for a date to be [...]

Lynda Carter plays a caring social worker that is suddenly drawn into a horrid reality of underworld mayhem. Babies are bought from troubled teenagers and then are placed into the hands of unstable parents for a fee of $ 30,000. Can you believe it. The sadest part of all is that this has really happened. Watch this one if you might see it on tv again. While Lynda Carter investigates the businessman believed to be responsible, she puts her own life in danger from the band of villians working for him. She is threatened, manipulated and puts her job in jeopardy desperately trying to crack the operation wide open. Of course, the best reason of all to watch this is that the beautiful Lynda Carter stars in it!!!

In England, Otis Madison learns from the girl that he loves, Isobel Brandon, that the man she loves is his best friend, John Geste, and so there is nothing that Otis can do but stiffen his upper lip and set sail for Morocco and tell John that he is the man that Isobel loves. This is not easy to do as John is confined to a prison for disgraced Legionaires and the people who put him there aren’t overly concerned about who Isobel loves. But the resourceful John promises his love to an Arabian beauty, Zuleika, the ‘Angel of Death’, which gets him out of prison, and then he has to go after the evil Emir who caused him to fall into disgrace. Isobel waits patiently in England.

Neighborhood kid goes to work for the Mafia as a debt collector. Foreshadows elements of “Goodfellas” and “Casino”. Joe Pesci’s first big role. Clever dialog.