SMASHPOUNDX' CREEKY PROJECTOR

1934 Western directed by Ray Taylor and starring Kermit Maynard, Barbara Worth, LeRoy Mason, Robert Frazer, George Chesebro and Lafe McKee. When the Mountie Sergeant returns murdered with a note that LaFarge did it, Trooper Burke sets out to after the evil LaFarge.

1935 mystery directed by Frank R. Strayer and starring Russell Hopton, Lola Lane and George F. Marion, Wheeler Oakman and Robert Frazer. The film's sets were designed by the art director Edward C. Jewell. While a renowned astronomer is giving a lecture in a planetarium, a shot rings out and one of the audience members is found dead. A tough detective and a brassy female reporter butt heads as they both try to break the case. (They don’t really “butt heads,” but it would be cool if they did). Notable as the first feature film broadcast on U.S. commercial television, on July 2, 1941, during the first week of official commercial broadcasts on NBC's New York television station WNBT-TV.

1949 adaptation of the story by Edgar Allen Poe for the television show, Suspense, directed by Robert Stevens and starring Bela Lugosi, Romney Brent and Rex Marshall.

1942 mystery-drama directed by William Beaudine and produced by Monogram Pictures. Starring James Dunn and Joan Woodbury, the film incorporates elements of the horror genre as it follows an ex-private detective who is called in to investigate why a banker has turned into a zombie. As the detective shares wisecracks with the banker's cheeky secretary, the two fall in love. The film was distributed in the United Kingdom under the title Lend Me Your Ear, and later released on home video as A Walking Nightmare.

1934 directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and starring Lon Chaney Jr., Sheila Terry and Philip Ahn. Chaney plays a colonial police detective in an Eastern seaport who seeks a stolen gem, and who infiltrates the underworld by posing as a drunken, wharf-side bar owner.

1934 British comedy-drama film directed by Alexander Korda and starring Douglas Fairbanks, Merle Oberon and Benita Hume. At the age of 51, it was the final role of Fairbanks, who died five years later. The film is about the life of the aging Don Juan, based on the 1920 play L'homme à la Rose ["The Man With the Rose"] by Henry Bataille. It was made by Korda's London Film Productions at British & Dominion Studios in Elstree/Borehamwood and distributed by United Artists. After twenty years in exile, an aging Don Juan returns to his old stomping ground of Seville along with his friend Leporello, who’s desperately trying to keep Don Juan healthy. His wife, whom he’s neglected for years, wants to have him thrown in jail, ostensibly for non-performance of husbandly duties. At the same time, a young imposter named Roderigo is strutting about pretending to be the Don, but playing with fire can get you burned, and so it is that Rodrigo is “offed” by an irate husband. Complications ensue…

1956 low-budget film noir directed by Wyott Ordung and starring Chuck Connors and Don Ross. Dan (Don Ross) returns to L.A. after being discharged from the army, having fought in the Korean War. He meets with Frank (Chuck Connors) the brother of Tommy who was killed while under Dan's command. Tommy was chagrined at being passed over for promotion and had written to his brother to express his chagrin and to let it be known that if he died in combat, Dan would be the one to blame. Frank, a professional big-game hunter, explains to Dan that because of his weak heart he can no longer do his thing and kill animals with high-powered weapons, but he offers to take him “hunting” in downtown L.A. with both men armed with camera guns. Unbeknownst to Dan, Frank replaces his camera round with a live bullet and plans to kill him in revenge for his brother's death.

1933 British horror film directed by T. Hayes Hunter and starring Boris Karloff, featuring Harold Huth, Dorothy Hyson, Ernest Thesiger, Kathleen Harrison and Cedric Hardwicke; Ralph Richardson makes his film debut. Weird-looking Professor Henry Morlant (played by Boris Karloff so he’s bound to look a bit odd), renowned Egyptologist, thinks that an ancient jewel called the "Eternal Light" will bring him back to life after he dies, so long as it is offered up to the ancient Egyptian god Anubis. But when Morlant dies, his servant Laing (Ernest Thesiger, who’s just as weird and creepy as Boris) steals the jewel. While a bunch of seedy individuals, including a disreputable solicitor (Cedric Hardwicke) and a fake parson (Ralph Richardson), show up to steal the jewel, Boris returns from the dead, not quite alive, and proceeds to menace the heck out of everyone.

1950 film noir directed by Felix E. Feist and starring Lee J. Cobb, Jane Wyatt and John Dall. Wealthy biotch Lois Frazer, divorcing her greedy, leering husband, Howard, finds a gun he had bought, probably intending to shoot her with it. She seizes the initiative and kills him with it in front of her new “beau-savant,” who is also a homicide detective with the San Francisco police. He also seizes the initiative and gets rid of the weapon the body, for he is a man in love and will do anything for his beloved, including ruining a career and risking a long stretch in the can. Problems ensue when he’s assigned to investigate the case, assisted, wouldn’t you know, by kid brother Andy, who is new to the homicide division and honest, brave, clean and reverent.

1935 action film directed by Noel M. Smith and starring Richard Talmadge, Gertrude Messinger and Robert Frazer. When an inventor develops a new type of aircraft, a crooked, dirty, evil, rotten, filthy, degenerate businessman (and inveterate Capitalist) attempts to steals the aircraft and its blueprints. The company’s test pilot, who is also the “beau-savant” of the inventor's daughter, (a tasty little buxom thing), beats the criminals with amazing feats of daring-do.

1932 pre-Code comedy-mystery directed by H. Bruce Humberstone and starring Zasu Pitts, James Gleason, Ben Lyon, Irene Purcell, Raymond Hatton and Robert Frazer. Amateur detectives in the Sphinx Club are rivals of an evil gang known as The Crooked Circle. (Not unlike Vegans vs Carnivores or Men vs Women, ((women being the evil gang.)) When a Sphinx tip leads to an arrest of a Crooked Circle member, they swear revenge on Sphinx member - the old Colonel. The Crooked Circle was the first feature film shown on television. In Los Angeles, the Don Lee Broadcasting System showed the film on March 10, 1933, over their experimental station W6XAO, transmitting an 80-line resolution mechanical television picture to a half-dozen or fewer receiving sets in the greater Los Angeles area. The film was shown again on June 18, 1940 on the NBC Television experimental station WX2BS, now WNBC-TV in New York City.

1941 adventure film directed by Howard Bretherton and written by Elizabeth Sutphin and Edmond Kelso. The film stars Michael Whalen, Grace Bradley, Darryl Hickman, Mantan Moreland, Louise Beavers and Wade Crosby. The film was released on March 25, 1941, by Monogram Pictures. Based on a story by Jack London.

1935 comedy-mystery directed by Christy Cabanne and starring Charley Grapewin, Lucien Littlefield, Mary Carlisle, Regis Toomey, Arthur Hohl, Fred Kelsey, Clarence, Wislon, Wallace Ford and Hedda Hopper. Faced with an upcoming inheritance tax, multimillionaire and snappy codger Jasper Whyte summons a group of people to his mansion to announce that he is leaving each of them one million dollars. This changes when he discovers a long-lost granddaughter, Doris Waverly, who comes to his mansion; Jasper decides to leave his total fortune to her. But then another Doris Waverly comes to the mansion. Who is the real Doris Waverly? And why are guests suddenly dropping dead?

1932 pre-Code mystery comedy directed by Albert Ray and starring Ginger Rogers and Lyle Talbot. The film is known as Lady Beware in the United Kingdom, which takes all the mystery out of the title and makes you wonder what happened to the Britts since Shakespeare. It is based on the 1929 novel The Thirteenth Guest written by crime fiction author Armitage Trail, best known for the novel Scarface, on which the 1932 movie of the same name was based. The novel was filmed again in 1943 as Mystery of the 13th Guest. Ginger is Marie Morgan who has been lured to scary old abandoned house by a note from a “friend.” Of course she goes. What girl wouldn’t? On the other hand, she’s the only living relative of the deceased owner and there’s a very large, very juicy inheritance just waiting to be passed on. But it seems there are other interested parties and one of them is a murderer...

1944 comedy-mystery film directed by Frank McDonald, starring Bela Lugosi, Jack Haley, Lyle Talbot, Blanche Yurka, Douglas Fowley, Fay Helm, Dorothy Granger and Lucien Littlefield. Timid insurance salesman Albert Tuttle (Jack Haley) visits eccentric millionaire Cyrus J. Rutherford, intent on selling him a $200,000 insurance policy. Unfortunately, Rutherford has recently died and his mansion is now full of relatives who are, according to the will, all bound to remain in the mansion until a glass-domed vault is constructed on the roof, to house the deceased eccentric millionaire, who loved star-gazing and wants to do it, even into eternity. Odd things begin to occur…

1942 directed by Jean Yarbrough starring Mantan Moreland, Johnny Downs, Gale Storm, Irving Bacon and Betty Blythe. Based on the novel by Jeannette Stratton-Porter that was a sequel to Freckles by her mother Gene Stratton-Porter. Freckles Winslow (Johnny Downs) is on his way home from college. On the bus he encounters a crook, "Muggsy" Dolan who calls himself Jack Leach because he thinks it’s a good way to conceal his true identity, (not much better than Clark Kent wearing glasses so know one will know he’s Superman). Leach is is looking for a place to hide from the coppers. The two hit it off and “Jack” or “Mugsy” (or maybe “Jugsy) decides to do Freckles a favor and use his home as a hide-out.

1931 pre-Code Western film directed by Otto Brower and David Burton and starring Gary Cooper, Lili Damita, and Ernest Torrence. Based on the 1929 novel Fighting Caravans by Zane Grey, the film is about a frontier scout who helps guide a wagon train across untamed country, fighting off wild Indians and schemy traders, (or is that schemy Indians and wild traders?) All the while his two crusty companions (“crusty” because they haven’t bathed since they were babies and it was forced upon them) try to save him from the evil and degraded state of falling in love. Despite being billed as “based on the Zane Grey novel”, the film and the book have little in common except the title. What else is new?

1941 British spy thriller film directed by Anthony Asquith starring Leslie Banks, Alastair Sim and John Mills. Filmed during the Second World War and set in Scotland during the war, its plot concerns evil Nazi spies trying to kidnap a peace-loving inventor who’s working on a new bombsight for the Royal Air Force. The film was shot at the Lime Grove Studios in London.

1936 directed by Bernard B. Ray for Reliable Pictures and shot at Big Bear Lake, California. Featuring the amazing dog, Rin Tin-Tin. The film is also known as Get That Girl in the United Kingdom, but let’s face it, the Britts are kind of weird. The story involves Enos Colvin, a strange man with an odd name, who is plotting to defraud his investors and “abscond” (too pretty a word for what this rat is going to do) with the assets of his company that are in the form of bonds. His secretary Caryl decides to take the bonds herself and post them to her Uncle Jean living in the Canadian woods. Discovering what Caryl has done and knowing where the bonds have been posted, Enos goes himself to Canada to get the bonds from Uncle Jean who has hidden them in a secret location in his hearth, the clever fellow.

Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (also known as The Boys from Brooklyn and in England as Monster Meets the Gorilla) is a 1952 comedy horror science fiction film directed by William Beaudine and starring Bela Lugosi with nightclub performers Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo (the bargain basement version of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis). Low-budget jungle adventure with Lugosi performing mad-scientist experiments with a gorilla, (what else) and Duke and Sammy facing the horrors of forced marriage to some jungle beauties.

A Shriek in the Night is a 1933 American pre-Code mystery crime film with elements of romance directed by Albert Ray and starring Ginger Rogers, Lyle Talbot, and Harvey Clark. It was produced by the independent studio Allied Pictures, and remains the company's best-known release. Rival reporters Pat (Rogers) and Ted (Talbot) find themselves unravelling the mystery behind the death of a millionaire philanthropist who fell from his penthouse balcony. When it is discovered that the deep dive was not an accident, the building's residents come under suspicion. Soon, the body count begins to mount…

1936 directed by Leo McCarey starring Harold Lloyd, Adolph Menjou, Verree Teasdale, Helen Mack and William Gargan. Timid milkman, Burleigh Sullivan, who in childhood developed an enhanced ability to duck, is mistakenly believed to have knocked out the boxing champ during a sidewalk incident and is propelled into the limelight and a series of fixed fights.

1951 directed by Gordon Douglas starring Gregory Peck, Ward Bond, Neville Brand, Gig Young, Lon Chaney Jr., Jeff Corey, Warner Anderson, Barbara Payton, Steve Brodie, Dan Riss and Michael Ansara. Captain Richard (Dick) Lance (ahem!) is blamed for the death of popular Lieutenant, after he is sent on a dangerous mission intended for the Captain. (The Company thinks the Captain changed the orders to spare himself but it was actually the Colonel). When the Captain then concocts the desperate mission of defending a narrow pass from a dilapidated outpost with the intention of blocking the evil Apaches from attacking the main fort, (which is poorly defended) Dick chooses the shabbiest men in the Company, who all hate him. Engaging cavalry western with a first-rate cast, produced by William Cagney, (Jimmy's brother).

1933 directed by Paul Czinner starring Laurence Olivier as Orlando, Elisabeth Bergner as Rosalind, Henry Ainley as the exiled Duke, Felix Aylmer as Duke Frederick, Stuart Robinson as Amiens, Leon Quartermaine as Jacques, Austin Trevor as Le Beau, Lionel Braham as Charles the Wrestler, John Laurie as Oliver, J. Fisher White as Old Adam, Mackenzie Ward as Touchstone. Aubrey Mather as Corin, Richard Ainley as Silvius, Peter Bull as William and Sophie Stewart as Celia. J. M. Barrie worked on the adaptation and David Lean served as Editor. Engaging, early adaptation of the play by Shakespeare, in which a seedy Duke banishes the good Duke and his daughter to the mysterious Forest of Arden, where nothing is as it seems and love softens even the stoniest of hearts. Only drawback is Bergner's shrill voice, which is as appealing as a woodpecker.

1932 directed by Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack and starring Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Leslie Banks, Robert Armstrong and Noble Johnson. After his ship crashes on a hidden reef and sinks, famed hunter Joel McRea swims to an island and seeks shelter in the island fortress of the Count Zaroff. Big mistake, for the seedy Count is fond of hunting human prey.