(1967) Jean-Louis Trintignant, Ewa Aulin, Roberto Bisacco.  One of the hippest, most stylish films of the ‘60s—no exaggeration.  Jean-Louis finds the corpse of a blackmailing nightclub manager in his office—blood on the floor.  In the room is Ewa, who claims innocence, even though her deceased father was the blackmail victim.  Together they go...

(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...

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...

(1932, World Wide, Upgraded 12/12/21) David Manners, Bela Lugosi, Edward Van Sloan, Adrienne Ames, Vince Barnett. A big time movie star is shot dead (the gun was supposed to have blanks) right in front of the cameras after receiving an on screen kiss.  Van Sloan is the director who continues to give directions to the corpse, thinking all along his actor is simply lying down on the job!  Manners is the studio writer who...

(1935) Henry Kendall, Eve Gray, Jeanne Stuart, Garry Marsh, Wally Patch. A well-known film director has a gangster double, whom he ends up killing. Taking the gangster’s place, he then causes an actress to...

(1960) Miyuki Takakura, Tatsuo Terashima, Yôichi Numata.  A wealthy businessman tries to orchestrate a marriage between his elder daughter and a young up-and-comer who he sees as a good candidate to someday to take over his business.  What dad doesn’t know, though, is that his daughter not only loves another man, but she’s also pregnant with child! When daddy ends up dead...

(1971) Frank Wolff, Nieves Navarro, Simon Andreu, Carlo Gentili.. An infamous jewel thief ends up slashed to death on a train by an unknown killer. His daughter, who’s a beautiful Paris nightclub sta

Armchair Fiction presents large, deluxe editions of classic mystery-crime novels.  “The Decoy” is a gritty murder tale written by mystery-crime novelist, Edward Ronns.  He was set up to take the fall.  Someone was pulling the strings of corruption in Sea City, and they had big plans for Ben Sherman, which would leave the now disgraced lawyer left holding the bag on a phony bribery charge...

THE DESIGNATED VICTIM—Widescreen (1971) Tomas Milian, Pierre Clémenti, Katia Christine, Marisa Bartoli.  An oddball count becomes friends with a frustrated businessman.  Together they work out a scheme in which the count will bump off the businessman’s loveless wife, while the businessman will rub out the Count’s unpleasant brother... 

(1945, PRC) Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake, Tim Ryan, Edmund MacDonald.  Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer.  A film noir classic. Neal plays a down on his luck musician who thumbs a ride that leads him into an unbelievable series of circumstances that finds him implicated in murder and crime...

(1945, Upgraded 3/3/21) Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake, Edmund MacDonald, Tim Ryan. A film noir classic. Neal plays a down on his luck musician who thumbs a ride that leads him into an unbelievable series of circumstances that finds him implicated in murder. Savage is priceless as the female psycho who...

(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...

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...

(1946) Pierre Fresnay, Fernand Ledoux, Andrée Clément, Thérèse Dorny, Pierre Juvenet, Albert Rémy, Robert Seller.  This French crime-drama is simply brilliant.  Fresnay is an infamous criminal who escapes from a shootout with the police.  He’s picked up on the road by a self-made millionaire who’s returning home to his only living relative, an aunt, whom he hasn’t seen since he was a child.  The car crashes and...

(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...

(1973, Anamorphic Widescreen Edition) Andrés Resino, Geneviève Robert, Dennis Price, Rosa Palomar, Howard Vernon.  A dying politician summons an attorney to his death bed to reveal that two imprisoned lovers, who were earlier convicted of murder, are actually...