Henry HallFilmography

The Petty Girl

Actors: Robert Cummings, Joan Caulfield, Elsa Lanchester, Melville Cooper, Audrey Long

Synopsis: Back in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, artist George Petty was famous for his "Petty Girl" illustrations; lovingly detailed renderings of ripe young damsels wearing next to nothing, and sometimes not even that. In The Petty Girl, George Petty is portrayed by Robert Cummings, while Joan Caulfield Read More

Challenge of the Range

Actors: Charles Starrett, Smiley Burnette, Paula Raymond, Billy Halop, Steven Darrell

Synopsis: Charles Starrett once more dons the mask of mysterious do-gooder "The Durango Kid" in Columbia's Challenge of the Range. Wandering cowboy Steve Roper (Starrett) is hired by the Farmers Association to stem the activities of a group of gunmen who are driving ranchers off their land. The most likely Read More

Cover-Up

Actors: William Bendix, Dennis O'Keefe, Barbara Britton, Art Baker, Helen Spring

Synopsis: Cover-Up transfers the metropolitan "film noir" milieu to a small Midwestern town. Dennis O'Keefe plays Sam Donovan, an insurance detective, investigating the suicide of a policy holder. All signs point to murder, but no one in the victim's hometown is willing to cooperate with Donovan, least of Read More

Panhandle

Actors: Rod Cameron, Cathy Downs, Reed Hadley, Anne Gwynne, Blake Edwards

Synopsis: Regarded by some film buffs as the best of director Leslie Selander's many westerns, Panhandle stars Rod Cameron as an ex-lawman turned gunslinger. He hopes to bury his past and homestead in Texas, but his plans change when his newspaper-reporter brother (John Champion) is killed. Reluctantly, Cameron Read More

A Southern Yankee

Actors: Red Skelton, Brian Donlevy, Arlene Dahl, George Coulouris, Lloyd Gough

Synopsis: Hot on the heels of Columbia's The Fuller Brush Man, MGM released another Red Skelton gagfest, A Southern Yankee. Set during the Civil War, the film casts Skelton as bumbling bellboy Aubrey Filmore. Yearning to help the Northern cause by becoming an undercover spy, Aubrey succeeds beyond his Read More

Command Decision

Actors: Clark Gable, Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson, Brian Donlevy, Charles Bickford

Synopsis: Command Decision is a stagebound but consummately acted adaptation of William Wister Haines' Broadway play. Clark Gable, starring in the role essayed on Broadway by Paul Kelly, plays Air Force Brigadier General "Casey" Dennis. With time at a premium, Dennis sends waves of bomber squadrons into Read More

Crossed Trails

Actors: Raymond Hatton, Johnny Mack Brown, Lynne Carver, Douglas Evans, Kathy Frye

Synopsis: "Some were good, some were bad, and all looked pretty much alike." This was "B"-western historian Don Miller's assessment of Johnny Mack Brown's Monogram westerns of the 1940s. One of the better look-alikes was Crossed Trails, in which Brown champions the cause of pretty ranch owner Maggie (Lynne Carver Read More

Canon City

Actors: Ray Bennett, Warden Roy Best, Robert Bice, Whit Bissell, Raymond Bond

Synopsis: This suspenseful crime drama reenacts the famed 1947 prison break out of the Canon City, Colorado corrections facility and features the actual warden, Roy Best playing himself. The trouble begins when one prisoner manages to fashion a crude pistol. Enlisting the aid of eleven others, they Read More

Song of the Wasteland

Synopsis: C&W singer Jimmy Wakely would never be Gene Autry or Roy Rogers, but he strove to please. In Song of the Wasteland, Jimmy tries to uphold law and order in a tough frontier town. The villainy was in the grimy hands of Holly Bane, Pierce Lyden, Ted Adams and George Cheseboro, so Wakely had his work Read More

Ghost Town Renegades

Actors: Lash LaRue, Al St. John, Jennifer Holt, Jack Ingram, Terry Frost

Synopsis: "King of the Bullwhip" Lash LaRue continues lashing away in the PRC western Ghost Town Renegades. In this one, the Cheyenne Kid (LaRue) and Fuzzy Q. Jones (Al St. John) investigate mysterious goings-on in an abandoned mining town. The villains have suddenly taken an inordinate interest in the Read More

The High Wall

Actors: Robert Taylor, Audrey Totter, Herbert Marshall, Dorothy Patrick, H.B. Warner, Warner Anderson

Synopsis: Former army pilot Robert Taylor is accused, on the basis of strong circumstantial evidence, of his wife's murder. Suffering from periodic blackouts, Taylor isn't so certain of his innocence himself. When offered a brain operation, Taylor refuses, knowing that if he is proven sane he will be Read More

Nightmare Alley

Actors: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, Taylor Holmes, Ian Keith

Synopsis: Nightmare Alley is the sordid tale of a conniving young man who, in the words of one of the film's supporting characters, ends up low because he aimed so high. Drifter Tyrone Power sweet-talks his way into a job as barker for a rundown carnival. He is fascinated by an illegal side-show attraction Read More

Pioneer Justice

Actors: Lash LaRue, Jennifer Holt, William Fawcett, Jack Ingram

Synopsis: In this low-budget Western from PRC, Marshal Cheyenne (Al "Lash" LaRue) and his sidekick Fuzzy Q. Jones (Al St. John) are looking into the strange goings-on in the town of Buffalo Gap. A ranger (Bob Woodward) has been killed and the trail leads to a gang headed by Bill Judd (Jack Ingram). There is Read More

Wild Country

Actors: Eddie Dean, Roscoe Ates, Peggy Wynn, Douglas Fowley, I. Stanford Jolley

Synopsis: The country in this low-budget Eddie Dean Western from PRC isn't so much wild as it is familiar. Dean is assigned to bring in escaped convict Rif Caxton (I. Stanford Jolley), whose trademark is a polka dot hatband. The bandit is holed up in Silver Springs, where he frames Sheriff Bill Devery Read More

The Flying Serpent

Actors: George Zucco, Ralph Lewis, Hope Kramer, Eddie Acuff, Wheaton Chambers

Synopsis: This threadbare PRC production plays like an Aztec variant on the studio's earlier Devil Bat, with PRC favorite George Zucco assaying the Bela Lugosi role. Zucco plays mad archaeologist Andrew Forbes, who stumbles upon the nest of a monstrous winged serpent -- the apparent source for the myth of Read More

Terrors on Horseback

Actors: Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Patti McCarty, I. Stanford Jolley, Kermit Maynard

Synopsis: Fuzzy's niece is killed in a stagecoach hold-up in this "Billy Carson" Western series entry starring Larry "Buster" Crabbe and Al St. John. Billy and Fuzzy quickly learn that the culprit, who not only killed all the passengers but also absconded with $40,000, may be holed up in lawless Pecos City. Read More

The Navajo Kid

Actors: Bob Steele, Sid Saylor, Edward Cassidy, Caren Marsh, Stanley Blystone

Synopsis: A B-Western hero since the late silent era, Bob Steele would hang up his spurs after a final four westerns for director Harry L. Fraser. In the opener, The Navajo Kid, Steele, as he had so many times before, went in search of the villain, or villains, who murdered his foster-father and stole both Read More

Larceny in Her Heart

Actors: Hugh Beaumont, Cheryl Walker, Ralph Dunn, Charles Wilson, Douglas Fowley

Synopsis: Larceny in Her Heart was the second entry in PRC's revival of the "Michael Shayne" series, with Hugh Beaumont as Brett Halliday's two-fisted sleuth. It all starts when Shayne agrees to track down the stepdaughter (Marie Harmon) of a local bigwig. But when his client's corpse turns up at his Read More

Marked for Murder

Synopsis: In this western, the Texas Rangers must stop a range war between sheepherders and cattle ranchers from erupting. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Come out Fighting

Actors: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Billy Benedict, Gabriel Dell, June Carlson

Synopsis: One of the more remarkable aspects of this "East Side Kids" comedy is that, for the first time, one of the "Kids" is a girl, played by June Carlson. Otherwise, it's standard stuff, with the Kids forming a shaky friendship with police commissioner James Mitchell (Addison Mitchell). Muggs (Leo Gorcey Read More

San Antonio

Actors: Errol Flynn, Alexis Smith, S.Z. Sakall, Victor Francen, Florence Bates, Paul Kelly

Synopsis: In his final epic Western, Errol Flynn plays cattleman Clay Hardin, who, on a trek south of the border, has discovered that San Antonio saloon proprietor Roy Stuart (Paul Kelly) is actually a cattle rustler of major proportions. Determined to bring Stuart to justice, Clay runs into difficulties Read More

The Daltons Ride Again

Actors: Alan Curtis, Kent Taylor, Lon Chaney, Jr., Noah Beery, Jr., Martha O'Driscoll

Synopsis: In this action western, the notorious Dalton Boys have decided to go straight and move to Argentina. Just before they leave, they learn of a friend whose land is about to be seized by a greedy land company. Before they can help, the man is killed by a company assassin. The brothers do manage to Read More

Lightning Raiders

Actors: Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Fuzzy St. John, Henry Hall, Steven Darrell

Synopsis: The most thrilling aspect of the PRC oater Lightning Raiders is the film's title. Though Buster Crabbe earns top billing as do-gooder Billy Carson (aka Billy the Kid), the first reel is dominated by Al St. John as Billy's mangy saddle pal Fuzzy Q. Jones. Expecting an important letter, Fuzzy gets Read More

Apology for Murder

Actors: Ann Savage, Hugh Beaumont, Charles D. Brown, Russell Hicks, Pierre Watkin

Synopsis: PRC's Apology for Murder is aptly named: the production values in this 67-minute quickie are pretty sorry. If you're willing to look past the mildewed sets and murky lighting, however, this well-paced film noir is pretty enjoyable. Hugh Beaumont (yes, that Hugh Beaumont) plays a tough Read More

Enemy of the Law

Synopsis: A great old Western filled with Tex Ritter's songs, this one revolves around a manhunt by the Texas Rangers who are trying to find the outlaw gang who, years before, broke into a safe and hid the money. Good Western comedy. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Phantom of the Plains

Synopsis: In this western, Red Ryder and his young sidekick Little Beaver help prevent an impressionable duchess from being duped by a bogus British aristocrat. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Whispering Skull

Synopsis: In this western, the Texas Rangers ride out after "The Whispering Skull" an enigmatic killer who murders his victims in the dead of night. Following the death of a town sheriff, one of the Rangers begins posing as the phantom. This forces the real killer to reveal his identity. ~ Sandra Brennan Read More

Heavenly Days

Actors: Jim Jordan, Marian Jordan, Eugene Pallette, Gordon Oliver, Raymond Walburn

Synopsis: Heavenly Days was the last of three RKO Radio film vehicles for the popular radio duo of Fibber McGee and Molly (aka Jim and Marion Jordan). Unlike their first two films, which were cacophonous, plotless musical farces, this one actually has a coherent storyline and not a little "heart appeal." Read More

Voodoo Man

Actors: Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, George Zucco, Michael Ames, Wanda McKay

Synopsis: Though no more expensive or ambitious than any of his earlier Sam Katzman-produced vehicles, Bela Lugosi's Voodoo Man is perhaps the best of the batch, if only because of its quirky supporting cast and casually offbeat dialogue. Lugosi plays Dr. Marlowe, a practioner of voodoo who kidnaps nubile Read More

The Jade Mask

Actors: Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland, Edwin Luke, Janet Warren, Edith Evanson

Synopsis: An engagingly silly Charlie Chan whodunit from Poverty Row company Monogram, The Jade Mask mixed science fiction with Old House melodramatics and a generous dose of comedy. The venerable Chinese detective (Sidney Toler) is this time assigned by the government to establish the whereabouts of Harper Read More

Gangsters of the Frontier

Synopsis: Replacing James Newell, country and western crooner Tex Ritter joins Dave "Tex" O'Brien and Guy Wilkerson in the last eight of PRC's "Texas Rangers" western series. In his initial effort, Ritter, as Sheriff Tex Haines, is again confronted with Bart Kern (I. Stanford Jolley) and his gang of Read More

Sonora Stagecoach

Actors: Hoot Gibson, Bob Steele, Rocky Camron, Betty Miles

Synopsis: Filmed at Corriganville, actor Ray "Crash" Corrigan's movie ranch in Simi Valley, Sonora Stagecoach was the last of Monogram's eight ramshackle "Trail Blazers" Western. The series had already suffered the loss of veteran star Ken Maynard -- who had become too difficult and costly -- and both Hoot Read More

Ladies' Day

Actors: Lupe Velez, Eddie Albert, Patsy Kelly, Max Baer, Jerome Cowan

Synopsis: Lupe Velez is "The Mexican Spitfire" in everything but name in the frantic baseball farce Ladies Day. Eddie Albert plays Wacky Waters, star pitcher of the Sox, a league-leading contender for the World Series. Alas, whenever Wacky falls in love, his game suffers-and so do the wives of his Read More

We've Never Been Licked

Actors: Richard Quine, Noah Beery, Jr., Anne Gwynne, Martha O'Driscoll, Edgar Barrier

Synopsis: This patriotic WW II-era bit of anti-Japanese propaganda centers on a white Texas college student who becomes such good friends with Japanese students on campus that he goes to their country after he is wrongfully accused of being a traitor. All this happened before the U.S. declared war on Japan. Read More

Riders of the Rio Grande

Actors: Jimmy Dodd, Bob Steele, Tom Tyler, Lorraine Miller, Edward Van Sloan

Synopsis: With Riders of the Rio Grande, Republic's 51-entry "Three Mesquiteers" western series came to an end. Starring as the Mesquiteers on this excursion are Bob Steele as Tucson Smith, Tom Tyler as Stony Brooke and Jimmy Dodd as Lullaby Joslin. It all begins when kindly town banker Pop Owens (Edward Van Sloan Read More

The Return of the Rangers

Synopsis: In this western, the Texas Rangers round up rustlers by masquerading as the same. Trouble ensues when while in disguise one of the Rangers is accused of a killing. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Girls in Chains

Actors: Arline Judge, Roger Clark, Robin Raymond, Barbara Pepper, Dorothy Burgess

Synopsis: In this unique murder mystery, that reveals the killer at the beginning of the film. The story concerns some women living in a prison reformatory and centers around a vengeful teacher who works there. With the help of a detective, an inmate endeavors to get her corrupt brother-in-law arrested and Read More

Harvest Melody

Actors: Rosemary Lane, Johnny Downs, Sheldon Leonard, Charlotte Wynters, Luis Alberni

Synopsis: As PRC pictures go, the modest Harvest Melody is practically a spectacular. Rosemary Lane plays former film star Gilda Parker, who hopes to regain her popularity with a carefully staged publicity stunt. Aiming for the "rural" trade, Gilda goes to work on a farm at harvest time. At the behest of Read More

Kid Dynamite

Actors: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell, Pamela Blake

Synopsis: Amateur fighter and all-around bully Muggs McGinniss (Leo Gorcey) tries to cheat in a pool game with hustler Harry Wycoff (Gabriel Dell). He is thwarted by his own friend Danny Lyons (Bobby Jordan), who has some strong ideas about right and wrong and wants to keep his friend honest. Muggs has to Read More

The North Star

Actors: Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan, Farley Granger, Ann Harding

Synopsis: In this bit of WWII propaganda (designed to boost support of America's alliance with Russia against Germany), Kolya (Dana Andrews), Kurin (Walter Huston), Damian (Farley Granger), and Marina (Anne Baxter) are members of a farming collective in the Ukraine known as the North Star. The hard-working Read More

The Ape Man

Actors: Bela Lugosi, Wallace Ford, Louise Currie, Minerva Urecal, Henry Hall

Synopsis: Whatever poor Bela Lugosi may have done in a past life, the man did not deserve The Ape Man, arguably the worst of his Monogram horror clunkers. Viewed today, it seems that screenwriter Barney Sarecky and infamous director William Beaudine (whose nickname "One Shot" was earned helming movies like Read More

Johnny Come Lately

Actors: James Cagney, Grace George, Marjorie Main, Hattie McDaniel, Marjorie Lord, Edward McNamara

Synopsis: For his first independently-produced starring effort, James Cagney chose the sentimental drama Johnny Come Lately. Cagney plays itinerant newspaperman Tom Richards, who wanders into a small corruption-ridden town. Striking up a friendship with elderly Vinnie McLeod (Grace George in her only movie Read More

West of Texas

Actors: Dave "Tex" O'Brien, Guy Wilkerson, Frances Gladwin, Marilyn Hare

Synopsis: A would-be Western epic soundly defeated by an almost nonexistent budget, West of Texas was the third of 22 "Texas Rangers" oaters released by Gower Gulch company PRC from 1942-1945 in an attempt to compete with Republic's The Three Mesqueteers and Monogram's "Rough Riders" and "Range Busters." Read More

Raiders of San Joaquin

Actors: Johnny Mack Brown, Tex Ritter, Fuzzy Knight, Jennifer Holt, Henry Hall

Synopsis: In this western, two cowboys ride to the rescue of ranchers who are fighting to keep a land-grabber from taking their land and selling it to the railroad. Things look bleak for a while, but fortunately, one of the heroes is related to the vice--president of the railroad and is able to straighten Read More

Boss of Hangtown Mesa

Actors: Johnny Mack Brown, Fuzzy Knight, William Farnum, Rex Lease, Helen Deverell

Synopsis: It is now an accepted fact that the best of Johnny Mack Brown's Universal westerns were directed by the talented Joseph H. Lewis. Boss of Hangtown Mesa may not be in the same league as the Brown-Lewis classic Arizona Cyclone, but it comes awfully close. This time around, hero Steve Collins (Brown) Read More

Behind the Eight Ball

Actors: The Ritz Brothers [Al, Jimmy, Harry], Carol Bruce, Dick Foran, Grace McDonald, Johnny Downs

Synopsis: To say that Behind the Eight Ball is the best of the Ritz Brothers' quartet of Universal vehicles is faint praise indeed, but it's fact that the Ritzes pack an awful lot of laughs in the film's 60-minute running time. The story takes place at a summer theater in the Berkshire Mountains, where Read More

Stagecoach Buckaroo

Actors: Johnny Mack Brown, Fuzzy Knight, Nell O'Day, Anne Nagel, Herbert Rawlinson

Synopsis: Stagecoach Buckaroo was Johnny Mack Brown's final Universal western of the 1941-42 season. A gang of holdup men has been plaguing the stagecoach line run by Denton (Henry Hall), the father of heroine Molly (Nell O'Day). Hoping to flush out the crooks, hero Steve (Johnny Mack Brown) rides shotgun Read More

The Mad Monster

Actors: Johnny Downs, George Zucco, Anne Nagel, Sarah Padden, Glenn Strange

Synopsis: Bland former child actor Johnny Downs earns top billing in this low-budget horror film, but the real star is that most psychotic of all the mad doctors George Zucco. The British-born character actor plays Dr. Lorenzo Cameron, a discredited -- and quite mad -- medico who has discovered a way to Read More

Queen of Broadway

Synopsis: There are no queens and very little Broadway (except for an opening establishing shot) in Queen of Broadway. Instead, this sentimental B-picture is the story of a gambler (Rochelle Hudson), who tries to clean up her act and adopt an orphan (Donald Mayo). She is challenged by the welfare Read More

Murder in the Big House

Actors: Faye Emerson, Van Johnson, George Meeker, Frank Wilcox

Synopsis: Murder in the Big House was a remake of the 1936 Warner Bros. programmer Jailbreak. In his first starring role, Van Johnson plays reporter Bert Bell, who wonders how it came to be that death-row inmate Dapper Dan Mallory (Michael Ames) was "accidentally" killed just before his appointment with the Read More

The Reluctant Dragon

Actors: Robert Benchley, Frances Gifford, Buddy Pepper, Nana Bryant, Claud Allister, Barnett Parker

Synopsis: The very first Disney feature to include live-action footage, this behind-the-scenes documentary about the studio's animation process includes the cartoon short of the title, which in later years was often exhibited separately from this film. Robert Benchley stars as himself, a visitor to the Read More

Pirates on Horseback

Actors: William "Hopalong" Boyd, Russell Hayden, Andy Clyde, Eleanor Stewart, Morris Ankrum

Synopsis: Producer Harry Sherman once again brought the "Hopalong Cassidy" unit to picturesque Lone Pine, CA, and the result was yet another tidy little sagebrush oater about the search for a missing gold mine. California Carlson (Andy Clyde) learns that his only remaining relative, Ben Pendleton (Britt Read More

Robin Hood of the Pecos

Actors: Roy Rogers, George "Gabby" Hayes, Marjorie Reynolds, Leigh Whipper

Synopsis: Robin Hood of the Pecos was set immediately after the Civil War, when most of Texas was under the thumb of corrupt northern politicians. Alleviating things somewhat is the presence of a mysterious masked night rider, inclined to rob from the rich and give to the poor. Believe it or not, this Read More

Dead or Alive

Synopsis: Although rather grandly dedicated to "the law officers of the Old West, who led the fight for law and order in the pioneer days of this country in 1880," Dead or Alive was merely another entry inThe Texas Rangers series, PRC's low-budget answer to Republic Pictures' Three Mesqueteers Westerns. Read More

Stick to Your Guns

Actors: William "Hopalong" Boyd, Andy Clyde, Brad King, Henry Hall

Synopsis: Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd) and his buddies Johnny (Brad King) and California (Andy Clyde) take on a gang of rustlers in Stick to Your Guns. To throw the bad guys off the track, Hoppy and his companions pretend to be rustlers themselves and infiltrate the gang. Their mission is complicated Read More

The Haunted House

Actors: Jackie Moran, Marcia Mae Jones, George Cleveland, Henry Hall

Synopsis: In the late 1930s-early 1940s, Monogram Pictures hoped to create a popular screen team in the form of teenaged thespians Jackie Moran (he was Huck Finn in Selznick's 1938 version of Tom Sawyer) and Marcia Mae Jones (a former child star who'd been in pictures since the silent days). In The Haunted Read More

Prairie Law

Actors: George O'Brien, Virginia Vale, Dick Hogan, John Farrell MacDonald, Charles "Slim" Whitaker

Synopsis: Cowboy hero George O'Brien has his hands full with crooked land promoter Paul Everton in Prairie Law. Selling acres and acres of worthless land while promising to provide an unlimited water supply to his customers, Everton sparks off a range war between cattlemen and homesteaders. Working on Read More

Blazing Six Shooters

Actors: Iris Meredith, Dick Curtis, Al Bridge, George Cleveland

Synopsis: Blazing Six Shooters is a by-the-numbers Charles Starrett western, with the same sets, supporting actors and plot devices already seen in so many earlier Starretts. The story revolves around a valuable silver deposit, located between two ranches. Villain Lash Bender (Dick Curtis) cooks up a scheme Read More

Santa Fe Trail

Actors: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey, Ronald Reagan, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Santa Fe Trail, Errol Flynn's third western, has precisely nothing to do with the titular trail. Instead, the film is a simplistic retelling of the John Brown legend, with Raymond Massey playing the famed abolitionist. The events leading up to the bloody confrontation between Brown and the US Read More

The Ape

Actors: Boris Karloff, Maris Wrixon, Gertrude W. Hoffman, Henry Hall, Gene O'Donnell

Synopsis: This painfully-bad Monogram feature wastes the talents of two of horrordom's finest -- star Boris Karloff and co-writer Curt Siodmak (who would write the horror classic The Wolf Man for Universal the same year). The goofy plot involves the efforts of one Dr. Adrian (Karloff) to procure human Read More

Chip of the Flying U

Actors: Johnny Mack Brown, Bob Baker, Fuzzy Knight, Doris Weston, Forrest Taylor

Synopsis: Chip of the Flying U was Johnny Mack Brown's first western entry for 1940. Brown essays the title role of Chip Bennett, foreman of the Flying U ranch. Before the second reel has tumbled over the spools, Chip finds himself falsely accused of robbery and murder. The actual miscreants are in the Read More

Headline Crasher

Actors: Frankie Darro, Kane Richmond, Muriel Evans, John Merton

Synopsis: The popular B-flick team of Frankie Darro and Kane Richmond star in the slick quickie Headline Crasher. Little Frankie and Big Kane play a pair of roving journalists who investigate a politician (Richard Tucker) up for re-election. When it seems as though the politico is being set up for a fall by Read More

Yodelin' Kid from Pine Ridge

Actors: Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Betty Bronson, Jack Kirk, LeRoy Mason, Charles B. Middleton, Art Mix

Synopsis: The prolific Jack Natteford wrote this unusual Gene Autry Western -- or, to be accurate, "Eastern" -- which reportedly suffered cuts after censors found it too violent. Gene, as usual, plays Gene Autry, this time the son of a Georgian cattleman (Charles Middleton) waging a war against the areas Read More

They Won't Forget

Actors: Claude Rains, Edward Norris, Allyn Joslyn, Linda Perry, Cy Kendall, E. Alyn Warren, Lana Turner

Synopsis: This hard-hitting Warner Bros. courtroom drama begins with the usual "Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental" disclaimer. Filmgoers with long memories, however, recognized Robert Rossen and Aben Kandel's screenplay as a blow-by-blow recreation of the Leo Frank-Mary Read More

Rootin' Tootin' Rhythm

Actors: Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Armida, Monte Blue

Synopsis: Gene Autry and his sidekick, Smiley Burnette, are suspected of cattle rustling in this action-packed Republic Pictures Western directed by former actor Mack V. Wright. Actually, Gene and Frog (Burnette) had been chasing a couple of real cattle rustlers, Apache Kid (Max Hoffman Jr.) and Black Jim (Charles King Read More

Mountain Justice

Actors: Josephine Hutchinson, George Brent, Guy Kibbee, Mona Barrie, Robert H. Barrat

Synopsis: In this depressing drama, even though she is an adult, the eldest daughter of a hillbilly clan headed by a brutal patriarch still must endure his vicious beatings. Finally her mother and other friends counsel her to leave the hills. She does and ends up in New York where she enrolls in nursing Read More

Rio Grande Ranger

Actors: Iris Meredith, Paul Sutton

Synopsis: Inheriting the props, costumes and much of the stock footage from Columbia's previous Ken Maynard series, Bob Allen rides tall in the saddle in Rio Grande Ranger. The villains are a band of outlaws who manage to elude the authorities by high-tailing it across the border to Mexico. Sheriff Bob Read More

Death in the Sky

Actors: Lona Andre, John Carroll, Henry Hall, Leon Ames, Wheeler Oakman

Synopsis: Puritan Pictures, a poverty-row operation devoted in the main to Tim McCoy westerns, turned out a few diverting murder mysteries during its short life span. In Death in the Sky, Leon Ames plays a World War I ace whose combat experiences have driven him mad. Convinced that every other aviator on Read More

County Fair

Actors: John Arledge, John Farrell MacDonald, Fuzzy Knight, Jimmy Butler

Synopsis: A jockey is thrown off the track after it is discovered that gangsters drugged his horse. This drama follows his attempts to redeem himself. First he and his buddy get jobs working on a horse-breeding farm. There he finds himself attracted to the farmer's pretty daughter. The farmer is unhappy Read More

The Vigilantes Are Coming [Serial]

Actors: Fred Kohler

Synopsis: Yet another Zorro imitation, this adventure serial starred Robert Livingston as Don Loring, whose father and brother are killed by the evil General Burr (Fred Kohler). Seeking revenge, Loring dons a black cape and mask, calls himself "The Eagle," and goes about bringing Burr and his men to Read More

Death in the Air

Actors: Lona Andre, John Carroll, Leon Ames, Henry Hall

Synopsis: An airborne serial killer terrorizes a group of war veterans in this ultra-cheap but fairly engrossing whodunit produced by one of Hollywood's few women executives, Fanchon Royer. Assigned to investigate a series of flight disasters committed by a phantom aircraft bearing only the legend "X," Read More

Murder at Glen Athol

Actors: John Miljan, Irene Ware, Noel Madison, Barry Norton, Iris Adrian

Synopsis: The "Crime Club" detective-novel series spawned a film counterpart in 1935, which for the next four years bounced around such studios as Warner Bros., Universal, and Chesterfield. The last-named company's contribution was Murder at Glen Athol, based on a novel by Norman Lippincott. Usually cast as Read More

Jailbreak

Actors: June Travis, Craig Reynolds, Barton MacLane, Dick Purcell, Addison Richards

Synopsis: Jailbreak is a formula Warners "B" with all the attendant stereotypes. Dick Purcell plays a convict accused of murdering a fellow prisoner. Craig Reynolds, a temporarily incarcerated reporter, sets about to prove Purcell's innocence. June Travis is the "girl on the outside," awaiting the release Read More

The Clutching Hand [Serial]

Synopsis: The second of three serials produced by the Weiss Bros. for low-budget Stage and Screen Productions, The Clutching Hand brought back that eminent detective Craig Kennedy, who had first appeared in Pearl White's The Exploits of Elaine back in 1915. Now played by the veteran Jack Mulhall, another Read More

Shadow of Chinatown [Serial]

Synopsis: Notorious Hollywood tightwad Sam Katzman's first serial, Shadow of Chinatown stars Bela Lugosi as Victor Poten, a Eurasian with a destructive hatred of both whites and Asians hired by Sonya Rokoff (Luana Walters) to ruin the tourist trade in San Francisco's Chinatown. But, as Sonya discovers and Read More

Gun Smoke

Actors: Marion Shilling, Bud Osborne, Ben Corbett, Henry Hall

Synopsis: Gun Smoke was the second of a brace of "B"-westerns starring the now-forgotten Buck Coburn. The plot is as standard as standard can be: Rancher George Culverson (Henry Hall) and daughter Jean (Marion Shilling) are menaced by villains Sneed (Philo McCullough) and McGee (Bud Osborne). Hero Steve Read More

Death from a Distance

Actors: Russell Hopton, Lola Lane, George F. Marion, Lee Kohlmar

Synopsis: Eccentric professor Einfeld (Lee Kohlmar) is lecturing a select group of scientists at a darkened planetarium when one of the spectators is shot to death. Homicide detective Ted Mallory (Russell Hopton) can't get a straight story from the witnesses and refuses to allow reporter Kay Palmer (Lola Lane Read More

Murder by Television

Synopsis: One of Bela Lugosi's least remembered films, this ultra low-budget whodunit with science fiction overtones features the murder of a professor who had recently perfected the new invention of television. Suspects are plentiful and include Bela Lugosi's rivaling academician Dr. Perry. Alas, the good Read More

G-Men

Actors: James Cagney, Margaret Lindsay, Lloyd Nolan, Ann Dvorak, Robert Armstrong, Barton MacLane

Synopsis: In G Men, Warner Bros. "bad boy" James Cagney plays James "Brick" Davis, a young lawyer whose education has been financed by soft-hearted racketeer McKay (William Harrigan). When Cagney's best pal, detective Eddie Buchanan (Regis Toomey), is killed in a gangland shooting, James decides to become a Read More

The Phantom Empire [Serial]

Actors: Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Jack Carlyle, Dorothy Christy, Frankie Darro

Synopsis: In his first starring role, Gene Autry must perform daily on Radio Ranch or forfeit his contract. Meanwhile, local kids Frankie (Frankie Darro) and Betsy Baxter (Betsy Ross King) establish a group of Junior Thunder Riders to emulate a mysterious band of horsemen that seems to vanish into thin air. Read More

Splendor

Actors: Miriam Hopkins, Joel McCrea, Paul Cavanagh, Helen Westley, Billie Burke

Synopsis: This romantic comedy-drama is set -- typical for producer Samuel Goldwyn at the time -- among the upper class. Joel McCrea plays Brighton Lorrimore, son of a well-to-do American family who returns from a trip abroad with a new wife, Phyllis Manning (Miriam Hopkins). Brighton's parents are dismayed Read More

The Desert Trail

Actors: John Wayne, Mary Kornman, Paul Fix, Eddy Chandler, Carmen La Roux

Synopsis: John Wayne's easy-going charm truly began to manifest itself in this, one of his later "Lone Star" Westerns for Monogram. Falsely accused of killing the paymaster (Henry Hall) of the Rattlesnake Gulch rodeo, John Scott (Wayne) and his girl-chasing partner Kansas Charlie (Eddy Chandler) trail the Read More

On Probation

Synopsis: Fearing that her unsavory past will be revealed, a young girl is prepared to kill her erstwhile benefactor in this hectic low-budget thriller directed by former serial star Charles Hutchison. A young child, Jane (Betty Jane Graham), is caught pick-pocketing and custody is awarded to crooked Read More

Music Hath Charms

Synopsis: This musical features the BBC bandleader trying to deal with his musicians in the recording studio. Meanwhile, outside the studio, his music helps save a band in the jungle from cannibals, helps a group of mountain climbers get out of a foggy area, and starts and ends relationships. ~ Steve Huey Read More

Mary Burns, Fugitive

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Melvyn Douglas, Pert Kelton, Alan Baxter, Wallace Ford

Synopsis: An innocent but admittedly none-too-bright victim of circumstance, Mary Burns (played by perennial movie victim Sylvia Sidney) is inexorably sucked into the vortex of organized crime. She tries to escape her murderer husband Babe Wilson (Alan Baxter), but it's a losing proposition, especially Read More

Circle of Death

Actors: Montie Montana, Tove Lindan, Yakima Canutt, J. Frank Glendon

Synopsis: Having allowed his name to be listed as "producer" of Gun Smoke, a low-budget Western actually produced by Willis Kent, rodeo star Montie Montana starred in this inexpensive oater, but without the phony producer credit. Originally intended for football star Reb Russell, Circle of Death featured Montana Read More

Gunsmoke on the Guadalupe

Synopsis: Produced by Willis Kent and directed by lanky actor-stunt-man Bartlett Carre, this film is perhaps the most obscure Western of the 1930s. The star, Buck Coburn, was a supporting player who usually billed himself as Rocky Camron or Gene Alsace, neither of which were apparently deemed heroic enough Read More

Our Daily Bread

Actors: Karen Morley, Tom Keene, John Qualen, Barbara Pepper, Addison Richards

Synopsis: Unable to secure Hollywood-studio backing for his Depression-era agrarian drama Our Daily Bread, director King Vidor financed the picture himself, with the eleventh-hour assistance of Charles Chaplin. Intended as a sequel to Vidor's silent classic The Crowd (1928) the film casts Tom Keene and Karen Morley Read More

Fighting to Live

Actors: Gaylord "Steve" Pendleton

Synopsis: Produced at the old Mack Sennett studios by Sol Lesser's low-budget Principal Distributing Corp., this dog melodrama featured not one but two canine "stars," -- Captain and Lady. Mistreated and left to die in the desert by evil real-estate agent Joe Gilmore (Eddie Phillips), the dogs are forced Read More

Inside Information

Actors: Rex Lease, Philo McCullough

Synopsis: Rin Tin Tin clone Tarzan the Wonder Dog is top-billed in the independently produced Inside Information. Tarzan nuzzles up to hero Rex Lease, a detective assigned to locate some missing bonds. The crooks prove no match for Tarzan, who bares his fangs and tears their clothes asunder. A happy ending Read More

The Dude Ranger

Actors: George O'Brien, Irene Hervey, LeRoy Mason, Henry Hall

Synopsis: In his first in a series of well-mounted Westerns and action melodramas for independent producer Sol Lesser, George O'Brien plays Ernest Selby, a young Easterner who cannot get rid of his inheritance -- an Arizona ranch -- soon enough. But when Sam Hepburn (Henry Hall), the wheelchair-bound Read More

Sweet Cookie

The Story of Temple Drake

Actors: Miriam Hopkins, Jack LaRue, William Gargan, William Collier, Jr., Irving Pichel

Synopsis: William Faulkner's bestseller Sanctuary was so taboo in some circles that Hollywood couldn't even use the title when making the first film version. Thus, Paramount's adaptation of Sanctuary went out as The Story of Temple Drake, fooling no one who could read. Miriam Hopkins plays the title role Read More

Sitting Pretty

Actors: Jack Oakie, Jack Haley, Ginger Rogers, Thelma Todd, Gregory Ratoff

Synopsis: No relation to the later Clifton Webb vehicle of the same name, Sitting Pretty is a dated but likable film about the songwriting racket. Jack Oakie and Jack Haley play a pair of would-be tunesmiths who team up with aspiring dancer Ginger Rogers. Through the kindness of a tippling director (Lew Cody Read More

Young Blood

Actors: Helen Foster, Harry Semels, Charles King, Naomi Judge, Hank Bell

Synopsis: A pet monkey saves the day in this otherwise unusually adult Bob Steele Western. The bantam-weight Steele plays Nick, aka "the Kid," a sort of prairie Robin Hood planning to return some jewels he stole from French performer Lola Montaine (Naomi Judge). Nick's partner-in-crime, Sheriff Jake Sharpe (Charles King Read More

Sagebrush Trail

Actors: John Wayne

Synopsis: So unknown was John Wayne in 1934 that the Variety review of the "B"-western Sagebrush Trail fails to list Wayne in the cast! The second of the Duke's films for Lone Star Productions, this one casts him as an accused killer in search of the real culprit. On the lam from the law, Wayne teams up Read More

Lawyer Man

Actors: William Powell, Joan Blondell, Helen Vinson, Alan Dinehart, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: William Powell is a poor East Side lawyer who works his way up the ladder to assistant prosecutor. He isn't too particular how he uses and misuses the law, much to the dismay of his faithful secretary (Joan Blondell). Powell's downfall comes when he falls for a shady lady (Claire Dodd) who Read More

The Penal Code

Actors: Regis Toomey, Helen Cohan, Pat O'Malley, Robert Ellis, Virginia True Boardman

Synopsis: New York Police Commissioner Mulroney opens Penal Code with a stern warning for parents about keeping the children off the streets and out of gangs. The rest of the film provides a grim example of what could happen if they do not heed him as it tells the tale of a young man's descent into Read More

Devil's Mate

Actors: Peggy Shannon, Preston S. Foster, Ray Walker, Hobart Cavanaugh, Barbara Barondess, George "Gabby" Hayes

Synopsis: This Monogram melodrama gets off to a quick start as a young man is shot to death -- while he's being led to the electric chair! The condemned man was planning to make a startling last-minute revelation which would have put a noose around the neck of his murderer. Several other people shared the Read More

Broadway Bad

Actors: Joan Blondell, Ricardo Cortez, Ginger Rogers, Adrienne Ames, Allen Vincent

Synopsis: Broadway Bad stars Joan Blondell as a wisecracking but goodhearted chorus girl whose husband (Ricardo Cortez) is an abusive lout. Blondell's plight makes the headlines, which results in an upswing in her career. Rather than wallow in self-pity, she trades on the publicity to become a star, while Read More

Rainbow Ranch

Actors: Rex Bell, Cecilia Parker, Bob Kortman, Henry Hall

Synopsis: Tall-in-the-saddle Rex Bell stars in this Monogram western. Bell, a Navy boxing champ, returns to his family's ranch, only to find out that his wealthy uncle has been murdered. The villain has done the dirty deed to grab up the local water rights -- and incidentally, to get his mitts on Bell's Read More

Bachelor Mother

Actors: Evelyn Knapp, Margaret Seddon, Paul Page, Astrid Allwyn

Synopsis: In this grim drama, a conniving young man is brought up on charges of reckless driving. To "prove" his innocence and good character, he goes to a nursing home and adopts an old woman whom he presents as his loving mother. Unfortunately for him, she really gets into her role and when he falls in Read More

Secrets of Wu Sin

Actors: Lois Wilson, Grant Withers, Dorothy Revier, Robert Warwick, Toshia Mori

Synopsis: In this crime thriller, a suicidal writer is saved by a helpful newspaper editor who gives her a much-needed job. Later she finds herself entangled in a plot to smuggle Chinese laborers into the country. She follows up on the many clues and ends up in the middle of Chinatown where she is Read More

Come On, Tarzan

Actors: Ken Maynard, Merna Kennedy, Kate Campbell, Roy Stewart, Bob Kortman

Synopsis: Ken Maynard's magnificent horse Tarzan took center-stage in this, perhaps the star's most flamboyant entry in the otherwise super low-budget KBS series. A wild stallion, Tarzan releases a group of horses corralled for slaughter by nasty Steve Frazer (Niles Welch), who is selling horseflesh to pet Read More

Strange Justice

Synopsis: In this crime drama, two corrupt financiers conspire to fake the murder of their boss and leave a hapless chauffeur to shoulder the blame. Their scheme works and the driver is given the death penalty. Fortunately, on the day of his execution, the "dead" man shows up and saves him. ~ Sandra Read More

Pack up Your Troubles

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Donald Dillaway, Jacquie Lyn, Mary Carr

Synopsis: Drafted into the army during World War I, those muddled misfits Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy make a shambles of Training Camp before being shipped to France. When their best pal Eddie (Donald Dillaway) is killed in battle, Stan and Ollie vow to locate the grandparents of Eddie's orphaned little Read More

The Midnight Warning

Actors: William "Hopalong" Boyd, Claudia Dell, Huntly Gordon, John Harron, Hooper Atchley

Synopsis: Inspired, it was stated at the time, by a real event, this minor but well-made Poverty Row mystery features Claudia Dell as Enid Van Buren, a young girl who checks into Apartment A at the Clarendon Arms Hotel with her brother, Ralph, and fiancée Erich (John Harron). But Ralph mysteriously Read More

The Thirteenth Guest

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Lyle Talbot, John Farrell MacDonald, James C. Eagles, Eddie Phillips

Synopsis: Thirteen years after a dinner party where the wealthy host dropped, the thirteen guests are invited to reassemble at the dinner table. First to arrive is Ginger Rogers--who is promptly killed. It turns out that the dead woman was an impostor, hired to impersonate a real guest (Ginger Rogers Read More

Tangled Destinies

Actors: Lloyd Whitlock, Doris Hill, Glenn Tryon, Vera Reynolds, Sidney Bracey

Synopsis: Produced at the little Tec Art studio by sound engineer Ralph M. Like, this film is one of those modest whodunits where the lights go out and someone inevitably gets hit over the head with a blunt instrument. This time, the crew and passengers from a Los Angeles-bound plane seek shelter from the Read More

In the Line of Duty

Actors: Sue Carol, Noah Beery, Sr., Rychard Cramer

Synopsis: Efficiently assembled by low-budget Monogram Pictures, In the Line of Duty is a serviceable melodrama completely dominated by that splendid screen scoundrel Noah Beery Sr. On the lam from a murder rap, Beery Sr. starts life anew as a hunter in the Arctic Circle, aided and abetted by his daughter Read More

A Free Soul

Actors: Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard, Lionel Barrymore, Clark Gable, James Gleason

Synopsis: In this Academy Award-winning film, Stephen Ashe (Lionel Barrymore) is a hotshot Californian lawyer from a well-to-do family, whose main failing is his indulgence in alcohol. After winning a case for mobster Ace Wilfong (Clark Gable), Stephen brings his client along to a party at his parents' Read More

Feet First

Actors: Harold Lloyd, Robert McWade, Lillian Leighton, Barbara Kent, Alec B. Francis

Synopsis: Harold Lloyd's second talkie finds The Bespectacled One playing a shoe clerk in Honolulu. Harboring dreams of becoming an executive, Lloyd passes himself off as a millionaire to heiress Barbara Kent. As the plot merrily rolls along, Harold stows away on a ship bound for the mainland, and ends up Read More

Reno

Actors: Ruth Roland, Montagu Love, Sam Hardy

Synopsis: Silent serial queen Ruth Roland made an unsuccessful bid at talking-picture stardom in the low-budget Reno. After six years of marriage to Alexander W. Brett (Montague Love), his wife Felicia (Roland) can stand no more of her husband's brutal bullying. She heads to Reno, establishes the standard Read More