(1956) Lilli Palmer, Curt Jurgens, Winnie Markus, Adelheid Seeck, Hans Nielsen. Palmer was 42 and drop dead gorgeous when she made this film.  Her feminine appeal is electric—and it’s supposed to be.  She lures in struggling composer Jurgens into a life completely dominated by her—everything he does, everyone he knows, is closely watched over by her.  She is one wicked dame—shades of Play Misty for Me...

(1953) Scott Brady, Mary Castle, John Blythe, Gabrielle Brune, Colin Tapley, Lloyd Lamble, Ferdy Mayne.  An American arrives in London searching for his brother who, unknown to him, has been convicted of a murder and is within three days of being executed. He meets a beautiful night-club entertainer and part-time smuggler, who aids him in his quest to prove the innocence of his brother...

(1943, PRC) Barton MacLane, Charlotte Wynters, Lyle Talbot, Dorothy Burgess, Forrest Taylor. MacLane, in an unusual role, plays a tough, crusading district attorney. His target he is gunning for (pun intended) is a top local mobster played by Talbot. Unfortunately, Talbot enjoys is protected by a number of crooked politicians...

(1941) Harry Baur, Renée Faure, Marie-Hélène Dasté, Raymond Rouleau, Robert Le Vigan.  A fascinating film with a wonderful music score.  It’s Christmas Eve in a snow-covered mountain community.  The children are just getting out of school when a darkly-clad baron returns to his nearby chateau after a ten-year absence.  He is in hiding because of leprosy.  Meanwhile, a mysterious intruder attacks a local priest while attempting to steal a sacred ring from the church... 

(1935, 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...

(1932, Monarch) Regis Toomey, Helene Cohan, Robert  Ellis, Pat O’Malley. Regis is a small town boy gone bad.  After serving a stretch in prison, he returns home only to be blackmailed by a bank cashier!  This is a poverty row quickie, but it’s got some good moments.  The big prison bust-out scene is cool...

(1931) Benita Hume, Peter Hannen, Harold Huth, Walter Armitage.  Hum and Hannen are newlyweds, off on their honeymoon.  Hannen is also an inventor with secret plans.  Little do the newlyweds realize that international crooks are out to steal Hannen's plans, who is soon kidnappedby the bad guys.  However, when they find he’s not in possession of the plans, Hume is left to contend with the conniving, low-down scoundrel Harold Huth...

(1960) Joel Rinne, Elina Pohjanpää, Matti Ranin, Leo Jokela, Leo Riuttu. This is a good old-fashioned closed room murder mystery.  The world famous Lieutenant Palmu is brought in to investigate when a much-despised millionaire playboy is found dead in his interior pool—murdered.  Who is the killer?  There are some nice tongue-in-cheek moments thrown into this well-made murder thriller...

(1952) Tod Slaughter, Patrick Barr, Tucker McGuire, Ingeborg von Kusserow.  Tod is up to his nefarious plans once again as he plans an elaborate scheme for blackmail.  Barr plays the detective who’s out to bring him to justice.  There’s murder and mayhem aplenty in this curious film.  Tod has some priceless bits of dialogue, complimented here and there with his maniacal laughter...

(1938) Erich von Stroheim, Michel Simon, Armand Bernard, Aimé Clariond, Serge Grave.  This is another forgotten von Stroheim gem.  A group of college boys form a secret society with an ultimate plan of going to America.  There’s a mystery afoot, though, when people start disappearing.  Things take a turn for the worse when an art professor turns up dead—murdered!  

(1935, Mascot) Victor Jory, Evelyn Venable, Ralph Forbes, Esther Ralston.  A group of people become entangled in a web of intrigue on board a super-duper streamline passenger train, streaking across the countryside.  On board are a crook, a stage director, an actress and a number of other characters...  

(1979) Toshiyuki Nishida, Isao Natsuyagi, Haruko Wanibuchi, Tomoko Saitô.  This is a really well-made Japanese “locked room” murder mystery set in the 1930s.  The famous Nipponese detective Kindaichi is called in to investigate a number of horrible slayings.  His investigations soon point the finger at members of a wealthy family—a family that, as it turns out, has many dark secrets to hide...

(1972) Stelio Candelli, Patrizia Viotti, Veronika Korosec, Rossella Bergamonti, Tom Felleghy.  A man finds his wife brutally murdered. He has no alibi so is instructed by his lawyer to go into hiding in an old, abandoned hotel. Strange occurrences start happening immediately, including the discovery of a woman with her throat cut! The hotel setting of this film is in some ways reminiscent of The Shining...

(1962) Liz Fraser, Kenneth Griffith, Peter Reynolds, Tony Wickert, David Hemmings. Two small-time blackmail artists (a man and woman) run afoul of a brutal gangster, who  stabs the man to death in his apartment as a warning for others to stay clear of his territory.  But when the woman shows up with an intended victim (a drunken student), the body is discovered and the student, in a drunken stupor, agrees to dispose of it...

(1959) Horst Buckholz, Mario Adorf, Helmut Schmid, Alf Marholm.  Buckholz gives the performance of his life as a human castoff, in international limbo, because of the loss of his passport.  He is conned into taking a job on a tramp steamer filled with misfits, smugglers, and murderers.  Soon after realizing his plight, he and his pal discover the ship’s cargo isn’t exactly what it’s purported to be...  

CROSS-UP (1958) Larry Parks, Constance Smith, Lisa Daniely, Donald Stewart. On the first night of his London assignment, news agency reporter Parks becomes heavily involved with a mysterious woman (Daniely). The affair ends when she is shot as they grapple for a gun she has pulled.  But this is only the beginning of Parks’ troubles, especially considering the dead woman worked for a criminal organization...

(1956, Upgraded 3/21/21) Dinos Iliopoulos, Margarita Papageorgiou, Marika Lekaki, Giannis Argyris.  This is a brilliant piece of Greek filmmaking, filled with wonderful performances and perfectly written pieces of dialogue.  A peaceful, frightened little man is mistakenly identified as "the dragon", a notorious criminal at large and known womanizer. He somewhat reluctantly rules the local underworld until...

(1936) Clive Brook, Victoria Hopper, Malcom Keen, Nora Swinburne.  Brook plays a drunken socialite who crashes his car on a lonely coastal spot where a smuggling operation is underway.  The smugglers don’t take kindly to being to discovered and beat the daylights out of him.  Later on he stumbles into a relationship with a girl who happens to be the brother of one of the smugglers...