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The original DRAGNET TV series ran from 1951 to 1959 until star Jack Webb decided to cancel it after 8 seasons despite continued high ratings. It became the template for every cop show that followed including a second DRAGNET from 1968-1971. Among the many police programs that followed in its wake was DECOY which featuredContinue reading “Comparing DECOY And DRAGNET.”

JOURNEY TO THE SEVENTH PLANET (1962) is the third and final offering in the so-called “Cinemagic Trilogy” after THE ANGRY RED PLANET (1960) and REPTILICUS (1961). Cinemagic was a production company founded by producer-director Sidney Pink and the Danish born writer and director Ib Melchior. While it is not the most technically accomplished of theContinue reading “JOURNEY TO THE 7th PLANET: Third & Last Movie In The Cinemagic Trilogy.”

Ib Melchior, son of famed Danish Wagnerian tenor Lauritz Melchior, had no desire to follow in his father’s footsteps and pursue a musical career. After graduating from the University of Copenhagen, he went to England and became involved in the theatre first as an actor and then as a stage manager and later a director. In early 1941 Ib came to theContinue reading “THE ANGRY RED PLANET: Ib Melchior’s Magnum Sci-Fi Opus.”

Flicker Alley continues their series of Argentinian film noir with NEVER OPEN THAT DOOR, a 1952 film of two stories based on works by Cornell Woolrich, the Arthur Conan Doyle of Noir, under his pen name of William Irish. The two stories 1) SOMEBODY’S ON THE PHONE and 2) THE HUMMINGBIRD COMES HOME were writtenContinue reading “1952 Argentinian Film Noir Packs A One-Two Punch.”

Over the years, there have been several notable versions dealing with the story of BLUEBEARD. The most critically acclaimed is Chaplin’s MONSIEUR VERDOUX (1947). The most critically reviled is Richard Burton’s BLUEBEARD from 1972. In 1960 George Sanders starred in BLUEBEARD’S 10 HONEYMOONS which is an effective, though hard to find, little B movie. ThatContinue reading “John Carradine’s Finest PRC Performance.”

In 1932, MGM decided to do a sound remake of one of Lon Chaney’s most successful post-PHANTOM OF THE OPERA movies, 1928’s WEST OF ZANZIBAR. That film, based on a Broadway play, was set in the jungles of Africa and told the sensational  story of an injured man’s bizarre quest for revenge. A stage magician,Continue reading “KONGO & WEST OF ZANZIBAR: Two Versions Of The Same Story”

During the mid-1940s, the success of the B movie horror units at Universal and at RKO tempted 3 of the best known Poverty Row studios (Monogram, PRC, and Republic) to produce B movie horrors of their own. A great deal of attention has been paid to the horror films of the first two with books,Continue reading “REPUBLIC PICTURES HORROR COLLECTION Is A Treat For B Movie Horror Fans.”

It has always been a great mystery to me how one of America’s largest and most successful production companies in the early days of motion pictures managed to have virtually all of its output completely disappear. Smaller companies from that time period such as Edison and Biograph have left us a large number of theirContinue reading “VITAGRAPH COMEDIES: Rarities Worth Revisiting”

The very first time I saw this movie, I must have been 10 years old and caught it on TV while I was staying home sick from school. As this was my first exposure to anything by H.G. Wells, I was far too young to know or understand any of his principal concerns such asContinue reading “THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES (1937): H.G. Wells Fantasy Still Has Something To Say”

H. Rider Haggard’s SHE was one of a number of late Victorian fantasy/romance novels I read when I was in high school back in the late 1960s. I ran across stills from a 1935 production of the story in a book about KING KONG which I’d purchased for my mother in 1976 (KONG was one ofContinue reading “SHE (1935): RKO Version Is A Marvel To Behold”