1931-1940

Even though its release date in 1933 pre-dated the most rigorous version of Hollywood’s Production Code,Man’s Castle still ran into censorship problems over such material as a man and woman skinny-dipping, and an unmarried pregnancy. Cuts were made to the original print even before the film came out, and still more for a 1938 re-release. Director Frank Borzage was at the height of his career, and Spencer Tracy on the verge of becoming a major star, but the controversy surrounding Man’s Castle seemed to affect its box office appeal, and it faded into obscurity.Read More »

An officer tries to convince an amnesiac bar entertainer that she is his long-lost lover.Read More »

The lurid title is tabloid drama but the film is a surprisingly effective drama of teen hobos rounded up and shunted into working like prisoners on a rural turpentine farm by unscrupulous racketeers. Probably made as RKOs answer to The East Side Kids or The Little Tough Guys or (pre) Bowery Boys, this even has lookalikes to Huntz hall and Frankie Darro. The lead juvenile Roger Daniel is excellent and research reveals he almost immediately went straight into obscurity (maybe the War intervened as he was 15 in 1940) and only turned up in several Monogram teen/rural pix and later their JOE PALOOKA films of the mid 40s in a bit part. Pity, as he is a good young actor. The older teen Tim played by James Mc Callion is exactly like Frankie Darro but plays his part a lot like a young Cagney. Far more successful as an actor and can be seen briefly in NORTH BY NORTHWEST. He had a long film and TV career right up until 1990. One of the kids, Walter Tetley ended up being the voice of Sherman in the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons in the 60s. BOY SLAVES is a good small RKO drama worth catching. There is a very clever scene early in the film by a swamp with interesting model work using a model of a freight train ‘in the distance’.
(from IMDB)Read More »

Description
Often compared to Reefer Madness, this low-budget exploitation melodrama features Lois January as Jane Bradford, a small-town coffee-shop waitress falling in love with smooth-talking city hoodlum Nick Brogan (Noel Madison), who gets her hooked on cocaine. While Jane goes from pretty ingénue to a hardened nightclub habitue known as Lil, her brother Eddie (Dean Benton), a waiter in a drive-in restaurant, is persuaded by co-worker Fanny (Sheila Manners) to enjoy a night on the town. They both become addicts and Fanny is reduced to walking the streets for money. Pregnant and rejected by the hopped-up Eddie, she finally kills herself.Read More »

From original nfo file:
Another pre-war Columbia serial, made before Sam Katzman could get his grubby hands on it, and as such is pretty good. Amateur magicians wil be interested in the magic show near the beginning of Chapter One. Among the routines performed by Mandrake is the Cup and Sponge Balls. This is a very old routine, but some magicians are better than others with hand magic.
Whoever is doing the cups and balls is very good.
I have no idea who is doing the actual hand magic. Certainly not Warren Hull. You can slow it down, play it backwards, and never see him make a slip.
The rest of the magic show is pretty ho-hum.Read More »

Two newspaper reporters, Thomas “Breezy” Elliott and Jane Morgan, inadvertently send a boy named Mickey Fallon to reform school after they write an expose of the illegal slot-machine racket the boy was a spotter for. Guilt-ridden, Jane convinces Breezy that they should marry in order to adopt Mickey so they can get him out of reform school.Read More »

A federal agent poses as a criminal to infiltrate a gang of parolees seeking vengeance on the lawmen who jailed them.Read More »

Synopsis:
An ex-con (John Garfield) embittered about being wrongly imprisoned is picked up for train-hopping and sent to a work farm, where he falls in love with the stepdaughter (Priscilla Lane) of a cruel foreman (Stanley Ridges) who dies shortly after a fight. On the lam, the falsely accused couple live a low-key life thanks to the generosity of a deli owner (Henry Armetta) who hires them, and later the owner of a newspaper (Alan Hale) who hires Garfield as a photographer — but the murder allegation continues to haunt them, and Garfield is convinced he’ll never get an even break.Read More »

Cast members of a show at the Alden theatre are being terrorized by a hunchback killer known as the Fiend, using frozen bullets, and two have been killed. Newspaper reporters Jean Monroe, drama editor, and Frank Gordon, accompanied by a dumb photographer, Elmer are on the story. Jean receives a note from Ted Wallington, the star of the play,”Satan’s Bride”, to meet him. From him, she learns the note was a fake, the lights go out and the Fiend strikes again as Wallington slumps to the floor dead. Peter Fortune, the author of the show, who has helped the police solve previous cases, agrees to assist on this case, but insists on working alone. Read More »