87% (2) Holiday Inn 100 min, Passed, [Comedy, Drama, Music, Musical, Romance] [Mark Sandrich] [04 Sep 1942]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 75%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Awards: Won 1 Oscar. Another 2 nominations.
Actors: Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Marjorie Reynolds, Virginia Dale
Writer: Claude Binyon (screenplay), Elmer Rice (adaptation), Irving Berlin (based on an idea by)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Lovely Linda Mason has crooner Jim Hardy head over heels, but suave stepper Ted Hanover wants her for his new dance partner after femme fatale Lila Dixon gives him the brush. Jim's supper club, Holiday Inn, is the setting for the chase by Hanover and manager Danny Reed. The music's the thing.
Rotten Tomatoes: Music by Irving Berlin, songs by Bing Crosby and dancing by Fred Astaire all add up to a really delightful musical that also just happened to launch the hit 'White Christmas'.
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81% (2) Ministry of Fear 86 min, Not Rated, [Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller] [Fritz Lang] [05 Feb 1945]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 72%, Rotten Tomatoes: 91%, External Reviews
Actors: Carl Esmond, Hillary Brooke, Marjorie Reynolds, Ray Milland
Writer: Seton I. Miller (screenplay), Graham Greene (novel)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Stephen Neale is released into WWII England after two years in an asylum, but it doesn't seem so sane outside either. On his way back to London to rejoin civilization, he stumbles across a murderous spy ring and doesn't quite know who to turn to.
Rotten Tomatoes: An innocent man is drawn into a web of espionage when he unwittingly comes into possession of a crucial piece of microfilm in this shadowy, ominous film noir. Fritz Lang's adaptation of Graham Greene's novel is filled with unusual touches, beginning with the fact that protagonist Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) has just been released from a mental asylum. To celebrate his return to the real world, he visits a local carnival, only to accidentally receive a "prize" meant for a Nazi agent. When he discovers the error, he turns for help to a detective, whose investigations only make the matter more complicated. Neale soon winds up on the run from both the Nazis and the police, who mistakenly believe him guilty of murder. Lang's famous expressionistic style is somewhat muted here, but Henry Sharp's crisp black-and-white cinematography sets a suitably unsettling mood, and the twists and double-crosses of Greene's story unfold at an appropriately quick pace. While it does not reach the same level of timeless classic as Carol Reed's adaptation of Greene's The Third Man four years later, Ministry of Fear stands as a well-made, thoroughly gripping and intelligent example of film noir.
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79% (1) The Time of Their Lives 82 min, APPROVED, [Comedy, Fantasy, Romance, Thriller] [Charles Barton] [16 Aug 1946]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 79%, External Reviews
Actors: Binnie Barnes, Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Marjorie Reynolds
Writer: Val Burton (original screenplay), Walter DeLeon (original screenplay), Bradford Ropes (original screenplay), John Grant (additional dialogue)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Two ghosts who were mistakenly branded as traitors during the Revolutionary War return to 20th century New England to retrieve a letter from George Washington which would prove their innocence.
Rotten Tomatoes: While perhaps not Abbott & Costello's best film, The Time of Their Lives is certainly their most unusual. Lou Costello plays a Revolutionary War-era tinker, whose prized possession is a letter from George Washington, commending Costello as a loyal patriot. Costello's lady love is Anne Gillis, maidservant to aristocratic Jess Barker. Costello's rival in romance is Barker's butler Bud Abbott, who locks the tubby tinker in a trunk to keep him away from Gillis. Meanwhile, Gillis stumbles onto a plot to betray the Colonial Armies, masterminded by Barker. The girl is kidnaped and spirited away, but not before Barker has appropriated Costello's letter from Washington and hidden it in a mantelpiece clock. All this is witnessed by Barker's fiancee Marjorie Reynolds, who disguises herself as a man, the better to make her way through the lines to warn the Colonial troops of Barker's plot. She frees Costello from his trunk and enlists his aid in locating Washington. Mistaken for traitors, Costello and Reynolds are shot dead. Their bodies are thrown in a well as a colonial officer curses their souls to remain on the grounds of Barker's estate "until the crack of doom," unless some evidence should prove them innocent of treason. A few moments later, Costello and Reynolds materialize as ghosts. They try to escape the grounds, but a supernatural force holds them back. Flash-forward nearly two centuries to 1946: Costello and Reynolds, still confined to the estate, resent the intrusion by Barker's descendants, who plan to renovate the mansion and open it to tourists. The two ghosts decide to haunt the estate, resulting in a series of amusing and well-conceived invisibility gags. Much to their surprise, Costello and Reynolds find none other than Costello's old nemesis Bud Abbott as one of the house guests. No, Abbott isn't a ghost: he's a famed psychiatrist, a descendant of the butler who double-crossed Costello back in 1780. Costello has a high old time playing tricks on the nervous Abbott (a fascinating reversal of the usual Abbott-Costello relationship) before the rest of the house's occupants decide to hold a seance to find out what's annoying the two ghosts. In a genuinely spooky sequence, sinister house servant Gale Sondergaard, possessed by the spirit of Jess Barker, reveals that the ghosts have been falsely accused of treason, and that their salvation lies in locating that letter from Washington. Driven by a feeling of remorse over the sins of his ancestor, Abbott does his best to help the ghosts. Before the plot is resolved, there is time for a standard Abbott-and-Costello chase scene, with the invisible Costello driving a car wildly around the estate, with a terrified Abbott cringing in the back seat. More than a little inspired by The Canterville Ghost, The Time of Their Lives was the second of two Universal films that attempted to recast Abbott and Costello as individual characters rather than smart guy-dumb guy team members. While the film is an unmitigated delight when seen today, it failed at the box office in 1946, compelling Bud and Lou to return to their standard formula in their next film, Buck Privates Come Home.
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61% (1) Mr. Wong in Chinatown 71 min, APPROVED, [Mystery] [William Nigh] [01 Aug 1939]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 61%, External Reviews
Actors: Boris Karloff, Grant Withers, Huntley Gordon, Marjorie Reynolds
Writer: Scott Darling (screenplay), Hugh Wiley (characters: series in Collier's Magazine)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: A pretty Chinese woman, seeking help from San Francisco detective James Lee Wong, is killed by a poisoned dart in his front hall, having time only to scrawl "Captain J" on a sheet of paper. She proves to be Princess Lin Hwa, on a secret military mission for Chinese forces fighting the Japanese invasion. Mr. Wong finds two captains with the intial J in the case, neither being quite what he seems; there's fog on the waterfront and someone still has that poison-dart gun...
Rotten Tomatoes: A mysterious visitor is found murdered in Mr. Wong's study in this, the third of Monogram's low-budget thrillers, featuring Hugh Wiley's Chinese detective. A startled Wong (Boris Karloff) learns from enterprising girl reporter Bobby Logan (Marjorie Reynolds) that the murder victim is Princess Lin Hwa (Lotus Long), in San Francisco to buy airplanes for her brother's army. Both the princess' traveling companion (Bessie Loo) and a mysterious dwarf (Angelo Rossitto) become victims of a mystery killer, who uses an ancient Chinese dart as his weapon of choice. The trail leads to a steamer in the San Francisco harbor, whose captain, Jalme (William Royle), is highly suspicious. Also among the would-be murderers are a phony airplane manufacturer (Peter George Lynn) and a local banker (Huntly Gordon). Although kidnapped by Jalme, Mr. Wong manages to unmask the real culprit.
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56% (1) Doomed to Die 68 min, APPROVED, [Crime, Drama, Film-Noir] [William Nigh] [12 Aug 1940]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 56%, External Reviews
Actors: Boris Karloff, Grant Withers, Marjorie Reynolds, William Stelling
Writer: Michael Jacoby (screenplay), Ralph Gilbert Bettison (adaptation), Hugh Wiley (characters from James Lee Wong stories in Collier's Magazine)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Shipping magnate Cyrus Wentworth, downcast over a disaster to his ocean liner 'Wentworth Castle' (carrying, oddly enough, an illicit shipment of Chinese bonds) is shot in his office...at the very moment of kicking out his daughter's fiance Dick Fleming. Of course, Captain Street arrests Dick, but reporter Bobbie Logan, the attractive thorn in Street's side, is so convinced he's wrong that she enlists the help of detective James Lee Wong to find the real killer.
Rotten Tomatoes: In his final "Mr. Wong" mystery, Boris Karloff solves the case of who killed shipping magnate Cyrus P. Wentworth (Melvin Lang). Wentworth's flagship "The Wentworth Castle" had tragically caught on fire with a tremendous loss of life. Near suicidal, the shipping tycoon is helped into the next world by persons unknown but dunderhead police captain Bill Street (Grant Withers) points the finger at Dick Fleming (William Stelling), the son of a rival tycoon and in love with Wentworth's daughter Cynthia (Catherine Craig). Promising to eat his hat if young Fleming isn't the killer, Street can only watch as enterprising cub reporter Bobby Logan (Marjorie Reynolds) assigns Mr. Wong (Karloff) to solve the case. Which the eminent Oriental sleuth does to the point where Bobby can gleefully add salt to Street's less than edible headgear. The burning of the fictional "Wentworth Castle" was actual footage from the infamous 1934"Morro Castle" fire, a tragedy that took the lives of 137 passengers.
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55% (1) The Fatal Hour 68 min, APPROVED, [Crime, Mystery, Thriller] [William Nigh] [15 Jan 1940]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 55%, External Reviews
Actors: Boris Karloff, Charles Trowbridge, Grant Withers, Marjorie Reynolds
Writer: Scott Darling (screenplay), George Waggner (adaptation), Hugh Wiley (based on the "James Lee Wong" Series in Collier's Magazine written by)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: When Captain Street's best friend Dan Grady is murdered, Street enlists the help of Chinese detective James Lee Wong. Mr. Wong uncovers a smuggling ring on the waterfront of San Francisco and unmasks the killer, though not until several more murders occur.
Rotten Tomatoes: In this mystery, ace detective, Mr. Wong helps Police Captain Street find the killer of his best friend.
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