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Here are four cool Poverty Row movies on two discs, all from Monogram Pictures:
JANE EYRE (1934) Colin Clive, Virginia Bruce, Beryl Mercer. This is the classic tale of a governess surrounded by mystery in an eerie mansion lorded over by the mysterious Edward Rochester. She's barred from a wing of the mansion where maniacal screams are heard. Solid acting adorns this gothic mystery. Considered by some critics to be the best Monogram film, and while it may not be at the level of the 1940s Orson Welles version, it's still an engaging film.
BLAZING BARRIERS (1937) Frank Coghlan, Edward Arnold, Jr., Florine McKinney, Guy Bates Post, Milburn Stone. Coghlan and Arnold play a couple of young punks who get into some serious trouble. They end up getting sent to a Civilian Conservation Corps camp out in the boonies where they're supposed to get their lives sorted out. This was probably Coghlan's best role next to Capt. Marvel. The climatic forest fire scene is really well-done for such a low-budget film.
BOYS' REFORMATORY (1939) Frankie Darro, Grant Withers, Grant Withers, Lillian Elliot, David Durand. Frankie plays a street-tough JD who takes the rap for something his foster brother did. He ends of getting thrown in the slammer, which turns out to be a boys reformatory filled with corrupt guards and other low-life characters. Withers tries to put him back on the right course.
MUTINY IN THE BIG HOUSE (1942) Charles Bickford, Barton MacLane, Pat Moriarity, Dennis Moore, George Cleveland. This is truly one of the better poverty row prison movies ever made. Bickford plays a priest who gets caught in the middle of a prison revolt. MacLane--who's so good at playing ruffian thugs--is, of course, the inmate behind the revolt. Good cast and an engaging script.
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