(1962) Tony Wright, Sonja Ziemann, Helmud Schmidt.   Wright is a wayward young mand who’s on the lam from a gang of thugs.  He soon meets up with a blind woman.  Together they come up with a double indemnity insurance scam, which they may or may not have the brains to pull off...

(1964) Dimitri Nabokov, Maria Luisa Geisberger, Ben Salvador, Sandro Pizzochero.  A quartet of bank thieves rendezvous in a secluded castle to divvy up a bundle of diamonds, which had been hidden there by their dead boss.  But the jewels are secured in an iron-clad safe and the only way to open it is with a combination of keys, one having been given to each of the thieves...

(1945-1948) Morgan Conway, Ralph Byrd, Boris Karloff, Anne Jeffries, Lyle Latell, Anne Gwynne.  Here’s the entire RKO Tracy collection—four movies on two discs, all in great video quality.  You get:  DICK TRACY (1945); DICK TRACY VS. CUEBALL (1946); DICK TRACY’S DILEMMA; and DICK TRACY VS. GRUESOME (1947)...

(1968) Lionel Stander, Gordon Mitchell, Gastone Moschin, Erika Blanc, Terry-Thomas, Adolfo Celi, Gordon Mitchell.  If you like caper films, this is a good one, similar to Who’s Minding the Mint.  A group of prisoners execute a brilliant plan of escaping from prison to commit an elaborate robbery, but then return to their cells before anyone knows they’re missing...

(1976) Lee Van Cleef, John Ireland, Carmen Cervera, Karin Well, Fernando Sancho.  This is a real grimy grindhouse drive-in movie.  No classic, but filled with all those low budget schlock thrills that ‘70s grindhouse fans love so much.  Van Cleef is betrayed by his lover and his best friend and is sent to prison on robbery charges.  He’s broken out of prison by the mob, who in turn want him to become a hitman...

(1939, Paramount) John Howard, Heather Angel, H.B. Warner, E.E. Clive, Reginal Denny.  A sparkling entry in the Paramount series as Hugh finds himself in Europe pursuing a bank robber.  Will he ever get married?  Great action and good fun in what proved to be the last entry of the Paramount series...

(1939) Elizabeth Allan, Ralph Michael, Enid Stamp Taylor, Basil Radford, Jeanne de Casaslis.  Allan plays a much-under-pressure college student who boards a train and comes down with a serious case of amnesia.  She’s eventually preyed upon by an old crook who poses as her mother in order to usurp her trust fund...  

(1946) Anthony Hulme, Joy Shelton, Jack Raine, Tamara Desni, Beatrice Varley.  This film—the first Paul Temple movie—is a good one.  Temple is a spirited novelist and amateur sleuth.  After teaming up with an energetic female reporter, they investigate a gang of diamond thieves that Temple suspects is behind the death of the reporter’s policeman brother...

(1957) Mark Miller, Anita Thallaug, Lars Ekborg, Norma Sjoholm, Birgitta Ander. This is a really cool thriller filled with all kinds of neato stuff--a masterpiece of drive-in celluloid.  An American reporter heads to Sweden to do a feature story on Swedish nightlife.  After falling for a beautiful, morphine-addicted nightclub singer, he decides to do an expose on the rampant practice of corrupt showbiz managers who keep their showgirls on drugs to insure their services...  

(1957) starring Tom Drake, Shirly Eaton, Robert Robinson, Maurice Kaufmann.  The film's setting is at an auto dealership where a couple of shiftless employees are conspiring with a tough gangster-type to rob the garage.  Things get out of hand when one of the crooks is murdered and Drake is implicated in the crime...

YELLOWSTONE (1936, Universal) Henry Hunter, Judith Barrett, Andy Devine, Alan Hale, Ralph Morgan, Paul Fix.  Enjoyable Universal murder mystery romp set in the great outdoors.  An ex-con is murdered inside Yellowstone National Park while a bank robber's son is scouring the landscape for the loot...

THE VILLIER’S DIAMOND (1938) Edward Ashley, Evelyn Ankers, Frank Birch, Liam Gaffney, Bill Shine.  Early Evelyn Ankers vehicle about a thief who arrives at the home of wealthy businessman to collect a debt owed him for stealing the priceless Villiers Diamond for the businessman. However, when the thief arrives, the businessman...

MURDER ON LENNOX AVENUE (1941) Mamie Smith, Alec Lovejoy, Norman Astwood, Gus Smith.  The setting for this all-black drama is Harlem, 1941.  Pa Wilkins, chosen by the Better Business League to replace an apartment building’s ousted, crooked leader (who wants revenge!) is having a hell of a time contending with his young ward, a two-timing womanizer whose affairs are approaching crisis level...

DANCING WITH CRIME (1947) Richard Attenborough, Barry K. Barnes, Sheila Sim, John Warwick, Garry Marsh.  Attenborough plays a London cab driver who gets in the snares of a criminal gang after he refuses to join them.  This causes a lot of problems for Attenborough, whose pal is one of the gang members.  Attenborough then sets out to expose the gang and...

THE THIRD VISITOR (1951) Sonia Dresdel, Guy Middleton, Hubert Gregg, Colin Gordon, Karel Stepanek, Eleanor Summerfield.  Stepanek plays a snobbish gent living in the English countryside who is visited by various people, including a tough gangster and a mysterious female, all in the black of the night.  The next morning, Stepanek’s nearly unrecognizable body (bludgeoned horribly in the face) is found by the cops, headed by a persistent British inspector...

THE GOLD EXPRESS (1955) Vernon Gray, Ann Walford, May Hallatt, Patrick Boxill, Ivy St. Helier, John Serret.  Gray plays a handsome reporter who, along with his new bride, are about to embark on their honeymoon when he is assigned to cover a story on express train loaded with a fortune in gold.  Unknown to all is that there are crooks on board with a devious plot to...

ONE WAY OUT (1955) Jill Adams, Eddie Byrne, Lyndon Brook, John Chandos, John Bushelle.  Eddie is a police official about to retire.  He is horrified, however, when he finds out his own daughter is innocently mixed up with a gang of crooks.  Even worse, they’re blackmailing Eddie, threatening to send her to prison for a crime she didn’t even commit if he doesn’t play along.  With his career hanging in the balance, Eddie comes up with a daring plan...

NIGHT TRAIN FOR INVERNESS (1960) Norman Wooland, Jane Hylton, Dennis Waterman, Valentine Dyall, Silvia Francis.  Some of these little Brit thrillers of the ‘50s and ‘60s are real gems.  In this nail-biting film, Wooland, an ex-con just out of jail, kidnaps his son, whom his wife has previously kept from him.  Wooland and his son, along with his disgruntled girlfriend (marvelously played by Hylton) board an all-night express train.  Unknown to them...