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... 

(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...

(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...

(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)...

(1950) Derek Farr, Joan Hopkins, Peter Lorre, William. Hartnell. Top British noir! After his wife is slain in a seaside cottage, Farr, also a suspect, threatens to pin the crime on his wife’s lover.

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... 

Armchair Fiction presents extra large editions of classic mystery-crime double novels.  The first novel is “The Dove” by top-of-the-line veteran mystery writer Milton K. Ozaki.  The second novel is a true classic of nail-biting suspense, “The Glass Ladder” by well-known sci-fi and mystery writer, Paul W. Fairman.  

HORROR OF BLACKWOOD CASTLE (1968) Heinz Drache, Karin Baal, Siegfried Schurenberg, Agnes Windeck. Baal inherits a mysterious old castle. She is pressured to sell the place, but refuses. That’s when bodies start

LABYRINTH (1959) Nadja Tiller, Peter Van Eyck, Nicole Badal, Amedeo Nazarri, Hannah Wieder. Labyrinth is a bizarre, brilliant film about a group of mental misfits in an out-of-this-world sanatorium

BLACK DICE (1951) Jack LaRue, Linden Travers, Lili Molnar, Hugh McDermott. Travers is a society dame who is kidnapped by two small-time thugs. LaRue gives the best portrayal of his life as a bigtime gangster who owns the Black Dice Club, a classy spot filled with rich suckers, showgirls, and illicit types. PLUS:  NIGHTBEAT (1947) Ronald Howard, Maxwell Reed, Anne Crawford.  In this superb film noir gem, Ross and Howard play young men who join the police force.  Ross succeeds; Howard fails.  Howard ends up on the wrong side of the law when he falls in with a shady nightclub owner, brilliantly played by Reed...