Author Archive: Retro

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.

After his wife dies giving birth, a young intern abandons his child, only to meet up with him years later, as he is about to remarry.

Paris is the setting and the color photography is excellent. The slight story concerns de Havilland seeking to prove to her father (Edward Arnold) and a senator and his wife (Adolphe Menjou, Myrna Loy) that American servicemen aren’t all wolves and to prove it has a harmless fling with a young G.I. (John Forsythe). Unfortunately, as in all Norman Krasna comedies, plot complications develop before she winds up in Forsythe’s arms for an amusing final scene. The cast sparkles with some fine work by de Havilland, Myrna Loy, Adolphe Menjou, Edward Arnold and–in one of his funniest roles–Tom Noonan. Only bad piece of casting is John Forsythe–who looks wooden and uncomfortable throughout with no comic flair whatsoever. Despite this, de Havilland manages to give a spirited performance that won the Belgian Prix Femina for Best Actress in a comedy in ’56.

Chandu the Magician uses his powers to fight an evil cult on a lost island.