THE ISLAND MONSTER (1954) Boris Karloff, Franca Marzi, Renato Vicario, Patricia Remiddi.  This often-maimed Karloff thriller really isn’t all that bad if you can get past the fact that Karloff’s voice is dubbed by someone else.  A law enforcement agent heads to a small Italian island to break up a drug smuggling ring.  Things get complicated when the smugglers kidnap his daughter...

THE BLACK RIDER (1954) Jimmy Hanley, Rona Anderson, Leslie Dwyer, Lionel Jeffries, Vincent Ball.  This B-film crime-quickie has minor elements of both horror and sci-fi.  Hanley is an effervescent reporter who tackles the story of a mysterious, hooded black rider who is seen a motorcycle near a crumbling castle on full moon nights.  Who is the rider and what is his strange purpose...?  

DOUBLE EXPOSURE (1953) John Bentley, Rona Anderson, Garry Marsh, dir. by John Gilling.  This is a nifty little crime film about a photograph that catches what is deemed to be a suicide, only—you guessed it—it’s not really a suicide, but murder!  Dant! Dant! Dah!  And of course, the photographer soon discovers she’s being stalked by the killer... 

THE ARSENAL STADIUM MYSTERY (1939) Leslie Banks, Greta Gynt, Ian McLean, Liane Linden, Anthony Bushnell.  A star English football player collapses right on the field during a big game.  When the dust settles, it’s discovered that the player was murdered!  But how…and by who?  Enter a snappy but serious police inspector played brilliantly by Banks...

THE SILENCE OF DEAN MAITLAND (1934) John Longden, Charlotte Francis, Constance Worth, John Warwick, John Pickard.  This forgotten Aussie-British crime-drama has Todd Slaughter regular Warwick released from prison after a twenty-year stretch for a killing he didn’t commit.   On his mind—revenge against the clergyman who stole those years by not clearing his name.  This film deals with murder, seduction, out of wedlock pregnancy, and betrayal.  Worth is priceless as the seductive hussy who ruins the lives of those around her.  From 16mm. 

THE DEVIL PLAYS (1931) Jameson Thomas, Florence Britton, Thomas E. Jackson, Dorothy Christy.  This quickie was distributed by the king of poverty row murder mysteries, Chesterfield Pictures.  In a nutshell, the film deals with a murder mystery that takes place over one long weekend at an expensive mansion...

DEATH HAUNTS MONICA (1976) Nadiuska, Arturo Fernández, Jean Sorel, Karin Schubert, Damian Velasco.  This is a pretty good Spanish Giallo complete with good guys in trench coasts and mysterious killers.  A beautiful, wealthy lady is implicated in a series of horrible murders.  She ends up running the gauntlet of numerous plot twists and subplots...

THE KILLER IS ON THE TELEPHONE—WIDESCREEN EDITION (1972) Telly Savalis, Anne Heywood, Giorgio Piazza, Osvaldo Ruggieri.  Beautiful Anne Heywood plays a woman whose husband was murdered five years before.  She is stalked, though, by the killer (Savalis) who wants to rub her out and end her threat as a potential witness against him... 

THE SMALL WORLD OF SAMMY LEE (1963) Anthony Newley, Robert Stephens, Julia Foster.  Wow… Newley is brilliant as Sammy Lee, a street hustler and strip club host who finds himself on the short end of life more often than not.  The plot has Sammy frantically trying to raise 300 pounds to pay off a debt to a mysterious personage known only as "Connor".  Connor’s ruffians are sent to track Sammy down when Sammy fails to pay...  

CAT & MOUSE (1958) Lee Patterson, Ann Sears, Hilton Edwards, Victor Maddern, Stuart Saunders.  Patterson (from Jack the Ripper) is truly detestable as a shiftless army deserter who blackmails a young lady (Sears) into revealing the hiding place of some jewels stolen by her father some twenty years before...

LADY IN THE DEATH HOUSE (1944, PRC) Lionel Atwill, Jean Parker, Douglas Fowley, Marcia May Jones.  This is a PRC one-week wonder with Parker on death row for murdering the man who blackmailed her family.  She claims the whole thing was a set-up.  In a strange twist of fate, her fiancé, (who’s a doctor who is conducting experiments on reviving the dead!) also happens to be the executioner at the prision...

I AM A CRIMINAL (1938, Monogram) John Carroll, Kay Linaker, Craig Reynolds, Martin Spellman, Lester Matthews.  Carroll is a gangster that the local DA (Matthews) wants to lock up and then throw away the key.  After going through a series of intriguing events, Carroll ends up jumping bail and hiding from the cops in a mountain resort...

MURDER AT THE BASKERVILLES (1937 aka SILVER BLAZE) Arthur Wontner, Ian Flemming, Lyn Harding, John Turnbull, Judy Gunn, Robert Horton, Minnie Raynor.  Sherlock Holmes goes on holiday and visits his old friend Sir Henry Baskerville.  Before long his holiday turns into a grisly double murder mystery...

THE FALLING MAN (1968)  Henry Silva, Beba Loncar, Keenan Wynn, Carlo Palmucci. Silva plays a tough police inspector in this Euro-crime thriller. A gang of thieves has killed his son.  To make matters worse, he’s accused of killing a police informer.  Soon he’s fired from the force...

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...

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...

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...

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...