Author Archive: Retro

Another wild comedy from the “Hellzapoppin” boys about two vaudeville comics who find themselves mixed up with gangsters. Dir. James Horne. Olson and Johnson attempt to save a theatrical boarding house from the bank.

Race car driver loses his nerve and gets a job as a taxi driver. Written by Leigh Jason. Dir. Harold French.

In the small town of Crown Port local attorney Bill Adams is trying to break up the ring of corrupt town officials by running for mayor. The cards seemed stacked against him when he gets help from a visiting hunter who, unknown to Adams and the rest of the town, is actually vacationing supreme court justice John Josephus Grant

Small-time racketeer hires teenager Durkin to answer phones at a bootlegging hideout so he can get the kid’s girl, Davis. Police raid the hideout, and send Durkin to a reform school where kids are brutalized by the guards. Written by Howard Higgin. Dir. Charles Swickard.

Sophisticated comedy: a trio of money hungry women who all have sugar daddies who keep them in the lap of luxury, even as they drive the men crazy. Each woman represents a different personality type, from sensitive, to kind-hearted, to difficult and untrustworthy. Set in the age of jazz, the twenties come roaring back with immorality and in-fighting.

Inspector must track down a rare blood type in order to save the life of a five-year-old girl suffering from leukemia. Written by Lewis Gilbert. Dir. Alfred E. Green.

Thirteen years after an infamous dinner party where the millionaire host is murdered, the thirteen dinner guests reunite at the rich man’s estate, but soon begin to drop dead. Dir. Albert Ray

Aunt Emma Bates (Zasu Pitts), a spinster, visits the “Big Town” to see a boxing match participated in by Mickey O’Banion (‘Malcolm ‘Bud’ McTaggart’ ), son of Emma’s old fianc? who was himself a boxing champion. At the arena Emma sits next to Terry (Roger Pryor), a reporter who is trying to track down Rex Crenshaw (Irving Mitchell), lawyer for gangster “Flower” Henderson (Tristram Coffin), who has been kidnapped by rival gang-leader Gus Hammond (Douglas Fowley), and manager of Mickey. After the fight Emma is mistaken for a notorious gun-woman named Ma Parker, and suspected by Hammond’s henchmen of working in the interests of Henderson. Mickey is shot during an altercation at Henderson’s nightclub and is later kidnapped from the hospital by his manager’s men and taken to an East Side outlaw. Emma, in an effort to free Mickey…

A Vietnam veteran tries to sel a screenplay in Hollywood. Captures the essence of the year 1969.