Tom Conway

  • Gordon Douglas – A Night of Adventure (1944)

    1941-1950CrimeGordon DouglasMysteryUSA

    A wealthy lawyer begins to suspect that his inattention to his wife is making her cheat on him. When he discovers the truth he’s charged with murder.Read More »

  • Mark Robson – The Seventh Victim (1943)

    Mark Robson1941-1950ClassicsHorrorUSA

    “Death is good” is how producer Val Lewton summarized the message of his films, a credo that received its most explicit expression in this strikingly nihilistic shocker, the first film directed by regular Lewton editor Mark Robson. Kim Hunter makes her film debut as a young boarding-school student who, in search of her missing sister (proto-goth icon Jean Brooks), travels to New York’s bohemian Greenwich Village, where she uncovers a sinister shadow world of devil-worshippers and murder. And what about that mysterious room furnished with nothing but a chair and a hangman’s noose? With its daring treatment of depression and queerness, The Seventh Victim has haunted the margins of cinema for decades, its radical bleakness undiminished by time.Read More »

  • Jacques Tourneur – I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

    Jacques Tourneur1941-1950ClassicsFranceHorror

    Producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur elevated the horror film to new heights of poetic abstraction with this entrancing journey into the realm between life and death. When she takes a job caring for a comatose woman on a Caribbean island, a young nurse (Frances Dee) finds herself plunged into a mysterious world where the ghosts of slavery haunt the present and Vodou priests have the power to summon the living dead. Sugarcane swaying in a moonlit field, the hypnotic beat of ceremonial drums, the relentless pull toward death—the otherworldly atmosphere of this bold reimagining of Jane Eyre is as close as studio-era Hollywood ever came to pure dream-state surrealism.Read More »

  • Henry Cass – Breakaway (1955)

    Henry Cass1951-1960CrimeUnited Kingdom
    Breakaway (1955)
    Breakaway (1955)

    Plot
    A secret formula purported to prevent metal fatigue during supersonic flight is stolen. Now, rival groups search for it. A kidnapping is also involved.Read More »

  • Jacques Tourneur – Cat People (1942)

    Jacques Tourneur1941-1950HorrorMysteryUSA
    Cat People (1942)
    Cat People (1942)

    Quote:
    Serbian national Irena Dubrovna, a fashion sketch artist, has recently arrived in New York for work. The first person who she makes a personal connection with there is marine engineer Oliver Reed. The two fall in love and get married despite Irena’s reservations, not about Oliver but about herself. She has always felt different than other people, but has never been sure why. She lives close to the zoo, and unlike many of her neighbors is comforted by the sounds of the big cats emanating from the zoo. And although many see it purely as an old wives’ tale, she believes the story from her village of ancient residents being driven into witchcraft and evil doing, those who managed to survive by escaping into the mountains. After seeing her emotional pain, Oliver arranges for her to see a psychiatrist to understand why she believes what she does. In therapy, Dr. Judd, the psychiatrist, learns that she also believes, out of that villagers’ tale, that she has descended from this evil.Read More »

  • Jacques Tourneur – I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

    1941-1950ClassicsFranceHorrorJacques Tourneur

    Young Canadian nurse Betsy comes to the West Indies to care for Jessica, the wife of a plantation manager Paul Holland. Jessica seems to be suffering from a kind of mental paralysis as a result of fever. When she falls in love with Paul, Betsy determines to cure Jessica even if she needs to use a voodoo ceremony, to give Paul what she thinks he wants.Read More »

  • Jacques Tourneur – I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

    1941-1950ClassicsHorrorJacques TourneurUSA

    A young Canadian nurse (Betsy) comes to the West Indies to care for Jessica, the wife of a plantation manager (Paul Holland). Jessica seems to be suffering from a kind of mental paralysis as a result of fever. When she falls in love with Paul, Betsy determines to cure Jessica even if she needs to use a voodoo ceremony, to give Paul what she thinks he wants.Read More »

  • Bernard Knowles – Park Plaza 605 (1953)

    1951-1960Bernard KnowlesCrimeDramaUSA

    Classic British mystery thriller starring Tom Conway as suave gumshoe, Norman
    Conquest. After intercepting a secret message, Conquest meets foreign femme fatale,
    Nadina Rodin (Eva Bartok), in room 605 of the Park Plaza hotel. When Conquest wakes up
    in the room the next morning he is lying next to a corpse and the mysterious Rodin is
    nowhere to be seen. Conquest is now the police’s number one murder suspect with
    Inspector Williams (Sid James) shadowing his every move. In order to clear his name,
    Conquest enlists the help of Pixie Everard (Joy Shelton), but things turn even uglier when
    he discovers that the murder is connected to a stash of stolen diamonds. As gun-toting,Read More »

  • Stanley Logan – The Falcon’s Brother (1942)

    1941-1950CrimeDramaStanley LoganUSA

    Quote:
    Gay Lawrence, amateur detective known as The Falcon, learns that his brother Tom has been reported murdered on a ship arriving from South America. Gay pursues the murderers, despite the fact that he knows his brother is still alive. When he is disabled, his brother Tom takes over the case, investigating a fashion magazine involved in secret activities with German infiltrators.Read More »

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