83% (2) The Hound of the Baskervilles 80 min, Approved, [Horror, Mystery, Thriller] [Sidney Lanfield] [31 Mar 1939]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 76%, Rotten Tomatoes: 91%, External Reviews
Actors: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Richard Greene, Wendy Barrie
Writer: Ernest Pascal (screenplay), Arthur Conan Doyle (novel)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: On his uncle's death Sir Henry Baskerville returns from abroad and opens up the ancestral hall on the desolate moors of Devonshire. Holmes uncovers a plot to have Sir Henry murdered by a terrible trained hound.
Rotten Tomatoes: Though it takes a few liberties with the Arthur Conan Doyle original, this film ranks as one of the best screen versions of this oft-told tale. After learning the history of the Baskerville curse, Sherlock Holmes decides to protect heir Henry Baskerville from suffering the same fate as his ancestors.
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81% (2) Dead End 93 min, Approved, [Crime, Drama, Film-Noir] [William Wyler] [27 Aug 1937]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 74%, Rotten Tomatoes: 89%, External Reviews
Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Joel McCrea, Sylvia Sidney, Wendy Barrie
Writer: Lillian Hellman (screen play), Sidney Kingsley (based upon the play by)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: The Dead End Kids are introduced in their intricate East Side slum, overlooked by the apartments of the rich. Their antics, some funny, some vicious, alternate with subplots: unemployed architect Dave is torn between Drina, sweet but equally poor, and Kay, a rich man's mistress; gangster Baby Face Martin returns to his old neighborhood and finds that nobody is glad to see him. Then violent crime, both juvenile and adult, impacts the neighborhood and its people.
Rotten Tomatoes: Adapted by Lillian Hellman from Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play, Dead End concerns itself with several denizens of New York's East River district. Here the elite and the slum-dwellers rub shoulders due to the close proximity of the riverfront tenements with the East Side luxury hotels. Slum girl Drina Gordon (Sylvia Sidney) tries to prevent her younger brother Tommy (Billy Halop) from wasting his life as a member of the local street gang. Tommy and the other kids idolize Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart), a onetime East- sider who has hit the "big time" as a notorious gangster. Dodging the cops, Martin makes a sentimental journey to the neighborhood to visit his mother (Marjorie Main) and his old girlfriend Francie (Clare Trevor). But Martin's mother coldly tells him to get lost, while Francie reveals herself to be a consumptive prostitute. Despite his depressed state, Martin is still admired by the local kids; this displeases sign painter Dave Connell (Joel McCrea), who hopes to escape the slums via his romance with wealthy Kay Burton (Wendy Barrie). Attempting to kidnap a rich boy who'd earlier been beaten up by the street kids, Martin is prevented from making the snatch by Dave, who shoots Martin down. Receiving a large reward, Dave decides to give the money to Drina so that she can afford a lawyer to defend her brother Tommy, who has wrongfully been accused of masterminding the beating of the rich kid. His outlook on life altered by this unselfish act, Dave gives up his mercenary romance with Kay Burton, choosing instead the poverty-stricken Drina. The film introduces the Dead End Kids--Billy Halop, Leo Gorcey, Gabe Dell, Huntz Hall, Bernard Punsley and Bobby Jordan--all of whom were veterans of the Broadway version of Dead End and would be metamorphosed into the East Side Kids and The Bowery Boys.
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71% (1) Five Came Back 75 min, PASSED, [Adventure, Drama, Thriller] [John Farrow] [23 Jun 1939]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 71%, External Reviews
Actors: Chester Morris, John Carradine, Lucille Ball, Wendy Barrie
Writer: Jerome Cady (screenplay), Dalton Trumbo (screenplay), Nathanael West (screenplay), Richard Carroll (story)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English, Spanish Country: USA
Plot: Twelve people are aboard Coast Air Line's flagship the Silver Queen enroute to South America when the airplane encounters a storm and is blown off course. Crashing into jungles known to be inhabited by head hunters, pilots Bill and Joe race against time to fix the engines and attempt a take off. The situation brings out the best and worst in the stranded dozen as they create a makeshift runway and prepare to escape before the natives attack. But damage to the plane and low fuel reserves means that only 5 people can be carried to safety. Do both Bill and Joe make the flight out? And what about the rest: Peggy, a woman with a slightly tarnished past; Pete, a racketeer who is escorting his boss's young son Tommy; Alice and Judson, eloping lovers who seem to have less in common as their plight changes one of them in the other's eyes; Crimp, who is bringing criminal Vasquez to justice; Prof. and Mrs. Spengler, an elderly couple whom become closer due to their predicament; and finally, is flight attendant Larry among the five? And who decides who lives and dies?
Rotten Tomatoes: A plane carrying twelve passengers crashes in a South American jungle. While working to repair the plane, they discover that it will only carry five back to safety. As the war drums of headhunters move closer, the passengers fight and deceive to be one of those who survive.
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68% (1) I Am the Law 83 min, APPROVED, [Crime, Drama] [Alexander Hall] [25 Aug 1938]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 68%, External Reviews
Actors: Barbara O'Neil, Edward G. Robinson, John Beal, Wendy Barrie
Writer: Fred Allhoff (story based on Liberty Magazine Serial), Jo Swerling (screenplay)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Law professor John Lindsay (Edward G. Robinson)accepts the job of special prosecutor offered him by civic leader Eugene Ferguson (Otto Kruger) against the wishes of his wife Jerry (Barbara O'Neil). Paul(John Beal, Ferguson's son, aids Lindsay, not knowing his father is boss of the crime syndicate.
Rotten Tomatoes: I Am the Law is arguably the best of the late-1930s films inspired by the racket-busting career of New York district attorney Thomas E. Dewey. Edward G. Robinson switches to the right side of the law as the Dewey counterpart, here named John Lindsay (!) A feisty, no-nonsense law professor, Lindsay is approached by a group of concerned citizens to act as special prosecutor to rid up their (unnamed) state of big-time lawbreakers. He wastes no time taking charge, storming into the prosecutor's office and firing anyone whom he suspects of being "on the take." With the help of his dedicated law students, who work alongside him for free, Lindsay purges the local government of such corrupt influences as Eugene Ferguson (Otto Kruger), the outwardly respectable "brains" behind the rackets. Among the minor pleasures in I Am the Law is watching Robinson dancing the Big Apple with gun moll Wendy Barrie in an early scene, and his firing of suspicious-looking Charles Halton with a brusque "Don't like your face! Never have! You've got shifty eyes and a weak chin!" (which, indeed, were Halton's screen trademarks). Barbara O'Neil, who the following year played Scarlet O'Hara's mother in Gone with the Wind, is quietly effective as Robinson's supportive wife.
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63% (1) The Saint Strikes Back 64 min, Passed, [Crime, Drama, Mystery, Romance] [John Farrow] [10 Mar 1939]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 63%, External Reviews
Actors: George Sanders, Jerome Cowan, Jonathan Hale, Wendy Barrie
Writer: John Twist (screenplay), Leslie Charteris (novel)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: A disgraced policeman's daughter in San Francisco is busy acquiring a name for herself as a crime boss in her own right. But when Simon Templar helps her get away after a shooting in a night-club and subsequently chooses to bring down his old acquaintance Inspector Fernack from New York, the question as to who is on which side of the law becomes increasingly confused -- especially when the vital evidence, in the shape of eighty thousand stolen dollars, spends most of the film in the Saint's pocket!
Rotten Tomatoes: George Sanders plays the suave detective Simon Templar (the "Saint") in this second film in the series. Simon must clear the name of a framed (and deceased) San Francisco policeman for the dead officer's daughter, who is determined to catch the thugs responsible.
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62% (1) The Saint in Palm Springs 66 min, APPROVED, [Crime, Drama, Mystery] [Jack Hively] [24 Jan 1941]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 62%, External Reviews
Actors: George Sanders, Jonathan Hale, Paul Guilfoyle, Wendy Barrie
Writer: Jerome Cady (screen play), Leslie Charteris (story)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Fernack tries to get Simon arrested as he returns home from a Transatlantic European vacation in order to help old friend and World War I hero Peter Johnson travel safely to Palm Springs in order to deliver $200,000, which has been converted into three rare stamps, to his daughter. While Simon is protecting him in New York, Johnson is murdered in his own apartment, but the killer is unable to get the stamps. The Saint brings them himself to the resort but is assaulted by a gang of foreign agents who steal the stamps. Johnson's beautiful daughter Elna doesn't believe Simon's story but gives him 24 hours to get them back before reporting him to the California authorities. Along with old friend Pearly Gates, a reformed pickpocket turned hotel house detective, they sift through many red herrings to uncover the stamps and the murderer.
Rotten Tomatoes: In this film, George Sanders makes his final appearance as crook-turned-detective Simon Templar, a.k.a. "The Saint." The gimmick in this story is a set of rare stamps, smuggled from England. Wendy Barrie is the true heir to this treasure, and the Saint is engaged to protect her and the stamps.
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