Author Archive: Retro

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.

Wealthy man meddles in friends’ romantic problems, causing chaos.

Jack De Quincy, an American graduate of Oxford, is still considered a wastrel playboy by his father, owner of a giant lumber company in the American northwest. To prove he is a man his father sends him there to take charge of a large lumber camp, filled with brawny he-men who spend their time drinking, gambling and brawling when not cutting timber. Once there, Jack establishes himself by winning a fight against “Dum-Dum” Pete, the toughest man in those parts. Along the way he sees to it that a needed operation is performed on the camp’s mascot, a crippled young boy, and saves his sweetheart, Marie O’Nei, that daughter of a rival lumber company, from drowning in the river when the spring thaw causes an ice-break flood.

Prison tale of cruel wardens and inhumane conditions on the famous French prison. English titles.

Farm girl falls in love with a movie star shooting a film near her farm.

The story begins at the beginning of the 19th century in a small town in Granada, after the death of Juan de Vargas, Curro, his son is left in misery. The village priest takes care of the child. One day Curro meets Soledad and love is born. With the intention of marrying the girl Curro moves to America to get rich.