SECRET OF THE RED ORCHID (1962) Christopher Lee, Marisa Mell, Adrian Hoven, Klaus Kinski.  In a change of pace role, Lee plays a determined FBI agent sent in to help Scotland Yard track down a murdering blackmailer and help bust up their crime syndicate.  PATTERN FOR PLUNDER (1962) Keenan Wynn, Ronald Howard, Mai Zetterling.   What a cool B-movie this is.  A group of WW2 vets seek a fortune in Nazi loot.  Their search leads to an ancient castle nestled by a beach riddled with quicksand...

KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL (1952) John Payne, Coleen Gray, Preston Foster. Terrific action drama about an ex-con who's nailed for an armored car robbery he didn't commit. He sets out to find the mastermind of the crime, which leads him south of the border.  PLUS:  BOMBAY WATERFRONT (1952) John Bentley, Patricia Dainton, Christopher Lee. Bentley is tops as the writer-turned-detective, Paul Temple. In this film, he tries to unmask a killer known as “the Marquis.”

FEAR NO MORE (1961) Mala Powers, Jacques Bergerac, John Harding.  Powers is the beautiful young ex-psychiatric patient who travels by train from L.A. to S.F.  She soon finds herself accused of murder when a corpst is found in her compartment. PLUS:  SHIP OF THE DEAD (1959) Horst Buckholz, Mario Adorf, Helmut Schmid.  A GREAT movie. A taut story of love, crime, hardship, hopelessness, and betrayal.  Buckholz is tops as a human castoff, in international limbo because of a lost passport.  

THE DEVIL’S AGENT (1961, Anamorphic) Peter Van Eyck, Christopher Lee, Macdonald Carey, Marianne Koch.   Former wartime Intel officer Van Eyck runs into his old pal, Lee, who takes him to his mansion for a fishing excursion. THE FACE OF THE FROG (1959, Anamorphic) Carl Lange, Joachim Fuchsberger, Siegfried Lowitz, Eddi Arent. An American detective becomes involved in a series of ghastly crimes. The only clue is the mysterious seal of the White Frog... 

BLOOD DEMON (1967, Anamorphic) Christopher Lee, Lex Barker, Karin Dor, Carl Lange.  Barker sentences Lee, the evil Count Regula, to death for slaying 12 virgins.  Many years later, Lee returns from the dead to claim revenge on Barker’s son. THE HUNCHBACK OF SOHO (1968, Anamorphic) Gunther Stoll, Pinkas Braun, Monika Peitsch. Terrifying things are happening around the grounds of an old castle, within which is a boarding house for delinquent girls... 

M (1951) David Wayne, Howard Da Silva, Martin Gabel, Raymond Burr, Luther Adler, Steve Brodie.  A well-done remake of the ’31 Lorre classic.  A mad killer is murdering small kids (this time in L.A.). The cops are combing the underworld, looking for the maniac. MOTHER RILEY MEETS THE VAMPIRE (1951) Bela Lugosi, Arthur Lucan, Maria Mercedes, Dora Bryan. Although this was officially a “Mother Riley” film, the real star here is Bela, who brings to his part an intensity not seen since his early ‘30s films. Worth it for him alone. Bela plots to dominate the world with an army of robots.

Armchair Fiction presents large, deluxe editions of classic mystery-crime novels. Veteran crime novelist Milton K. Ozaki tells a powerful tale of deception and murder in “The Dummy Murder Case.” It was a mock murder that led to...

EASY MONEY (1936, Invincible) Onslow Stevens, Kay Linaker, Noel Madison, Allen Vincent.  An assistant DA botches an insurance racket trial against his brother.  He resigns, but goes to work for a private firm in order to bring his brother to justice.  When the brother is murdered, he sets out after the killers...

Armchair Fiction presents large, deluxe editions of classic mystery-crime novels.  Sterling Noel’s “Empire of Evil” is one of the best mystery-crime thrillers dealing with the Mafia that you’ll ever come across.  It was the bloody path to murder.  This is the story of Daniel Andradi, a young executive in America’s most terrible industry—crime. This is the rise of a Mafioso, don of the Brotherhood of Evil, wielder of power beyond belief...

(1959) Battah, Omar Sharif, Reyad El Kasabgy, Umar El-Hariri.  A gang of smugglers murders a factory manager.  One of the factory employees is blamed.  Before the cops can grab him he flees across the desert into another country.  It gets even more complicated when his sister back home falls in love with...

THE END OF THE LINE (1957) Alan Baxter, Charles Clay, Jennifer Jayne, Barbara Shelley, Ferdy Mayne.  Baxter has a great part as an American writer in London who succumbs to the charms of his ex-girlfriend, played by Barbara Shelley (who wouldn’t!).  Unfortunately, she’s now married!  And when her hubby ends up dead, he finds himself the target of a blackmail scheme...

(1953) Sid James, Bonar Colleano, Simone Silva, Andrew James, Ted Ray, written and directed by John Gilling.  James plays an Italian racketeer on the run in London.  He runs into a scoop-seeking, hard-drinking reporter.  The reporter (Colleano) helps him hide out in a shut-up theater and in return he gets the gangster’s life story.  A little boy, who is convinced they’re secret agents, brings them food while they’re in hiding.  The coppers are soon onto them...

Armchair Fiction presents extra large editions of classic mystery-crime double novels. The first novel is “Everybody’s Watching Me” by well-known murder, mystery, and suspense writer Mickey Spillane.  o get it from him.  So Joe Boyle had to play the dangerous game of always having to be one quick step ahead of the mob.  The second novel is a true classic of nail-biting suspense, "A Bullet for Cinderella" by another well-known mystery writer, John D, MacDonald. 

(1961) Ed Dugan, G.J. Mitchell, Louis Gartner, Don Alderetter, Madeline Frances, Wes Carlson.  A teenage boy drives off from a diner and witnesses a car-to-car shooting in which a gangster is badly wounded, his car crashing into a ditch...

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...

(1931) Lowell Sherman, Peggy Shannon, Lila Lee, Berton Churchill, David Landau, Joyce Compton.  Sherman gives a grand performance as a doctor who’s fired from his hospital job for being morally corrupt.  He then sets himself up as a plastic surgeon, although he is completely unqualified.   He seduces women, rips off his patients, and soon causes an operating room tragedy that lands him in criminal court...