(1956) Ida Lupino, Ralph Moody, Walter Coy, Richard Lupino.  Ida and her kid brother (her real life cousin, Richard) plot to kill Ida’s husband and collect the insurance money.  They use a gas leak to commit the crime.  The only problem is her husband’s invalid father...

(1953) Boris Karloff, Ewan Roberts, Sheila Burrell, Richard Wattis, Joan Sims.  In this enjoyable anthology of three episodes of Colonel March of Scotland Yard, Karloff plays the smooth-talking title character.  He’s faced with three seemingly weird cases...

(1945) Bernard Blier, Sophie Desmarets, Jacques Pills, Jean Davy, Louis Salou, Ginette Baudin.  This isn’t a good movie, it’s a great movie—one of the best mysteries we’ve released in a long, long time. Blier is the rookie detective assigned to the murder-by-strangling cases of two young women.  The only clue he has is that the killer is always heard softly singing a current hit tune before he strikes...

(1941, PRC) Chick Chandler, June Clyde, George Meeker, Gregory Gay.  In a pitch black apartment a girl screams.  There’s a gunshot, then a body hits the floor.  Moments later the girl snags a ride from an unsuspecting young fellow...

(1934) Richard Bird, Lorna Hubbard, Geoffrey Wardwell, George Zucco, Francis L. Sullivan.  A young man quarrels with his Uncle about the girl he wants to marry.  The uncle threatens to disinherit him. The next morning the uncle turns up dead—his throat cut!  In an engaging courtroom scene, the nephew is tried for murder.  But if the nephew isn’t guilty, then who is the killer?...

(1974, Anamorphic Widescreen Edition) Senta Berger, Luc Merenda, Umberto Orsini, Anita Strindberg, Bruno Corazzari.  This is a very well-made Euro-thriller with Merenda playing a bewildered man who’s lost his memory as the result of a car crash...

(1959, Anamorphic Widescreen) Karl-Arne Holmsten, Annalisa Ericson, Gunnel Broström, Bengt Brunskog, Nils Hallberg, Gio Petré, Björn Bjelfvenstam, Mona Malm.  Rider in Blue is part of a series of five detective thrillers directed by the incomparable Arne Mattsson and featuring Holmsten as detective John Hillman.  The plot here is pretty straightforward, while Hillman is tackling an assignment in London, his wife (Ericson) visits an Army riding school...

(1932) Jerry Verno, Anthony Holles, Edgar Norfolk, Philip Durant, Sybil Grove Verno plays a bemused office clerk who has grand ideas about his future.  He’s caught play acting in front of his boss’s mirror and is loudly reprimanded.  Concurrently, a convicted jewel thief is released from prison and tailed by the police in the hope of him leading them to a cache of stolen pearls...

(1931) Arthur Wontner, Ian Fleming, Minnie Rayner, Leslie Perrins, Jane Welsh, Norman McKinnel.  A pretty British girl calls in Dr. Watson for advice—her brother has been cheating in high stakes bridge games.  What’s even worse is that her brother’s activities are also known to the sinister Professor Moriarty, who blackmails him into helping him with his nefarious schemes.  Enter Sherlock Holmes, who dives into the situation to set things right and defeat his wily, longtime nemesis. Wontner may well be the best purveyor of the Holmes character outside of Basil Rathbone.  Norman McKinnel is brilliantly wicked at the film’s climax.  The first of five films starring Wontner as Holmes. From 35mm. 

(1930) Gerald du Maurier, Mabel Poulton, Ian Hunter, Gordon Harker, Edna Best.  This film begins with real life footage of a fox hunt—symbolic of what’s coming ahead.  Du Maurier defends the honor of a prostitute and ends up unintentionally killing a plain clothes detective.  He lands in the slammer...

(1929, United Artists, MGM) The Locked Door, Barbara Stanwyck, Rod La Rocque, William Boyd, Betty Bronson. Barbara’s first talkie.  Out on a wild party boat filled with booze and unsavory types, Barbara falls for a decadent sleazebag played by La Rocque... Voice of the City, Robert Ames, Willard Mack, Sylvia Field, John Miljan.  This MGM crime quickie is about an escaped prisoner who’s really innocent...

(1929, Paramount) Neil Hamilton, Warner Oland, Doris Hill, Fredric March, Eugene Pallette.  An early whodunit with a great cast.  March plays a sleazebag-wannabe actor who’s been playing around with the wife of his director (Oland) as well as another young girl (Hill).  When Oland’s wife ends up dead, he confronts March with a knife...

Armchair Fiction presents extra large editions of classic mystery-crime double novels. This double novel’s first tale is “Dig Her a Grave” by whodunit veteran Paul Kruger. Jeannie Flemming was young, hard, and tough—but not quite tough enough! The day that newspaperman Denny Dolan stumbled over her very luscious naked body, she was also very definitely dead...

(1952) Patrick Barr, Tucker McGuire, Tod Slaughter, Frank Hawkins. These two episodes are from an obscure Brit detective TV series.  Barr, as Morley, is an ex-police inspector, now in private practice.  He’s called in by two elderly sisters who say that someone is plotting to kill them...

 (1960, Anamorphic Widescreen) Spencer Teakle, Felicity Young, Martin Benson, Hugh Latimer, Dorinda Stevens, Dawn Brooks.  A couple of burglars (one old, one young) crack the safe in a jewelry shop, but just as they’re making their getaway they’re attacked by rival gangsters.  The young one manages to escape...

(1935, Updated 4-8-25, Universal) Austin Trevor, Gary Marsh, George Hayes, Robert Horton, Brian Buchell.  A visiting French sleuth steps in to help the police solve the “diary murders,” in which each victim is found in possession of a diary page of a dead actress. Before long a murdered corpse is found in a locked room!  This is one of those cool, intricate murder mysteries in a big old mansion filled with red herrings and other furtive types...

(1952) Dermot Walsh, Barbara Murray, Charles Victor, John Blythe, Thora Hird, John Horseley.  Walsh is a college lad who shatters his father’s dreams when he is basically expelled from Oxford University for being a bit of an upstart...

(1952) John Bentley, Patricia Dainton, John Robinson, Valentine Dyall, Lockwood West.  Bentley is the Toff, a “Saint” style detective who falls upon a sinister plot while on a train.  It seems that a criminal known as “the Hammer” is looking to steal a secret formula for a new lightweight metal alloy that’s tougher than steel...