Author Archive: Retro

Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with scientific means of revealing the hidden, dark side of man and releases a murderer from within himself.

Dir. Eisenstein.

The scenario follows the book closely. Tarzan’s son Jack (Korak to the apes) is kidnapped from England by Tarzan’s old enemy Paulovich. He escapes into the African jungle with the help of Paulovich’s trained ape Akut. There he meets Meriem, a white girl held by Arabs. He frees her and falls in love. Meriem (who is really an heiress) is sought by Paulovich. Tarzan arrives with Jane at his African estate and intervenes.

Feature version of the serial “Dr. Mabuse the Gambler”. English titles. Dir. Fritz Lang.

This romantic melodrama was based on the novel Peggy of Beacon Hill by Maysie Greig. Because she is so badly treated by her stepfather (James Marcus), Peggy Mason (Lillian Rich) considers marrying Joe Wheeler (Brooks Benedict), even though she does not love him. Then she inherits a thousand dollars and this enables her to become a partner in a Bohemian tea room in Boston. There she meets Douglas Wyman (Robert Frazer) and falls in love with him. When he takes her to his lodge in the woods he admits that he is already married to a faithless wife (Bonnie Hill). Peggy refuses to have anything to do with him and escapes from the lodge. She is caught in a storm and becomes very ill. While she is recuperating, she reads a newspaper item that says Wyman is being tried for the murder of his wife. Since she was killed on the night that he was [...]

Real-life stunt flyer Al Wilson heads westward in the lightning-paced actioner Phantom Ranger. The plot was so unimportant that many reviewers were moved to comment that the film didn’t have a plot. All that mattered was seeing Wilson in action, not only in the air, but also on land in a speeding car, a racing motorcycle and a galloping horse. Yes, Wilson rescues the girl (Lillian Gillmore), and yes, he trounces the villain (Larry Steers). Though never a favorite with big-city critics, Al Wilson’s picture invariably turned a profit in neighborhood and rural “grind houses.”

An eerie mansion in the Florida bayou is the backdrop for this story of a young heir, a scheming lawyer and a damsel in distress.