Gino (Massimo Girotti), a listless wanderer, falls for the wife (Clara Calamai) of an older bar owner (Juan De Landa). When she won’t run off with him, the two murder the husband. But neither deal well with the guilt and begin to mistrust each other. A homosexual peddler and a prostitute offer Gino alternative life-paths,
After he loses a girl to his partner, Ted Hanover (Fred Astaire), song man Jim Hardy (Bing Crosby) quits the business to run an Inn which will only be open on holidays. He hires singer-dancer Linda Mason (Marjorie Reynolds) for his shows, and the two are quickly a romantic item. But Ted is dumped and
The Noir world is like ours, except the dialog is wittier, the shadows are deeper, the sins are darker, and the prize, be it treasure or the truth of human nature, is more magnificent. You don’t get more magnificent than the Maltese falcon.
Prince Ahmad (John Justin) is betrayed by his vizier, Jaffar (Conrad Veidt), and imprisoned. He escapes with the help of Abu (Sabu), a young thief, and together they see a princess (June Duprez) that Ahmad falls in love with. She is the daughter of the Sultan (Miles Malleson), and Jaffar wants her, so he magically blinds
In this lighthearted version of The Maltese Falcon, con artist Ted Shayne (Warren William in the Spade role) was just kicked out of town so drums up some business for his old partner Ames (Porter Hall in the Archer role) and then rejoins his detective agency in another city. He, of course, hits on secretary
Captain Benjamin Briggs (Arthur Margetson) takes the ship Mary Celeste on a sea voyage to England and has decided to bring along his new wife, Sarah (Shirley Grey). He should have spent more time gathering a proper crew as his current one includes a sadistic first mate (Edmund Willard), the mysterious Anton Lorenzen (Bela Lugosi)
Any list of top Swashbucklers needs at least one film based on the works of Alexandre Dumas, and this is the best of them. Pleasingly acted and filmed, it still just barely counts as a Swashbuckler due to its leisurely pacing and scarcity of swordfights.
If there is a literary king of the Swashbuckler it would have to be Alexandre Dumas. His fast-paced historical fiction (which held only a winking acquaintance with actual history) was serialized in French papers in the mid 1800s and was extremely popular. His stories contained many of the elements that make a good film, so they have
Joe Valerie dies at Dr. Paul Cornelius’s (Warner Oland) clinic, trading knowledge of where he hid a million dollars in stolen loot for euthanasia. Soon after, Joe’s wife (Jane Darwell) falls to her death after seeing Joe’s ghost. The police, picking up fraudulent spiritualists, get one who’s real, Patricia Merrick (Dorothy Wilson). So on a
Renfield (Dwight Frye) travels to Transylvanian to arrange for Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) to move to London. Renfield is turned into an insane slave of the vampire count and together they travel to England, where Dracula settles in a ruined abbey next to Doctor Seward’s (Herbert Bunston) sanitarium, inside which Renfield takes up residence. Dracula