Holmes And Hypnotism

 

THE WOMAN IN GREEN-1945-The head of the CID in London lectures his agents on their failure to find any clues in the seemingly random mur-ders of 3 women all missing a finger. After a fourth is killed, Inspector Gregson (Matthew Boulton) calls on Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone). After another murder, rich Sir George Fenick (Paul Cavanagh) wakes up in a strange house with no memory of how he got there after having a nightcap with his younger girlfriend Lydia Marlowe (Hillary Brooke). Then Prof. Moriarty (Henry Daniel) shows up and in a roundabout way accuses Fenick of being the murderer. Later, Holmes is visited by George's daug-hter Maud (Eve Amber). She says she saw her dad bury a box that contains a finger. 

They visit Sir George and find him dead. Holmes suspects Moriarty, who was supposed to have been hanged in Montevideo. The professor visits Holmes and tells the detective to drop out. Later, there's an attempt on Holmes' life. The assassin appears to be hypnotized. After he's killed, Holmes & Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) visit The Mesmer Club and a dis-believing Watson is hypnotized. Then Holmes formally meets Lydia who says “hypnotism is like a religion with me”. She tries to hypnotize Holmes and make him commit suicide. Of course, Lydia is in league with Moriarty, along with her maid and a crazy doll lover. 

This is the 11^th of the 14 Sherlock Holmes adaptations starring Rathbone and Bruce, again produced and directed by Roy William Neil. It's based on the Conan Doyle story “The Adventure of The Empty House”. Both Brooke and Daniel were in their second outing in the series.

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The Original Invaders

 

 (imdb)

INVADERS FROM MARS-1953-Little David (Jimmy Hunt) who's interested in astronomy sees a UFO land near his house at night. When his scientist dad (Leif Erickson) goes to investigate, he disappears. David's mom (Hillary Brooke) calls the police. Two cops investigate (one is Douglas Kennedy) and seem to fall into a hole made in the sand. Later dad shows up, now a cold, mean zombie with a strange wound on the back of his head. After dad hits David, the cops show up also zombified. Later David sees his young neighbor fall in one of the sand holes. She comes back mesmerized and sets her house on fire. David goes to the chief of police (Bert Freed) but he's already been taken over and has Sgt. Finley (Walter Sande) put him in detention. Finley calls in Dr. Pat Blake (Helena Carter, who retired from acting after this) to examine David. She seems concerned. Mom comes to get David but it's obvious she's now “one of them”. Fortunately, Dr. Blake rescues him and takes him to see Dr. Kelston (Arthur Franz), an astronomer who believes David saw Martian invaders. Kelston contacts Col. Fielding (Morris Ankrum) and Capt. Roth (Milburn Stone). The taken over people start sabotaging things. When Pat & David are captured, we finally see the aliens, tall green guys with bulging eyes who obey a weird golden head (Luce Potter) who speaks telepathically. 

I won't reveal the “shock ending” although everyone probably knows it already! Also with (mostly all uncredited) William Phipps, Fay Baker, Peter Brocco, Richard Deacon, John Eldredge, Tod Karns, Robert Shayne, Frank Wilcox and Lock Martin. 

This science fiction film released by 20^th Century-Fox was filmed in SuperCineColor, a three-color process invented in 1948 but only used till around 1954. Despite a fairly low budget, director John Cameron Menzies uses unusual camera angles and almost surreal set pieces.

 (imdb)

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Lucky Losers

LUCKY LOSERS-1950-After the mysterious suicide of a popular banker Slip (Leo Gorcey), Sach (Huntz Hall) and the rest of the boys (Billy Bennedict, Buddy Gorman and David Gorcey) help their reporter/friend Gabe (Gabriel Dell) investigate. To get jobs at a crooked casino run by Lyle Talbott the boys get tutored by a street con artist named Buffer (Harry Tyler). Hillary Brooke is Countess Margo who works at the casino. Little Louie (Bernard Gorcey) winds up impersonating a Texas gambler in the funniest scenes. Also with Joe Turkel and Selmer Jackson.

Although this is a typical BB comedy it does have some serious overtones. As with the previous entry BLONDE DYNAMITE, William Beaudine directs from a screenplay by Charles Marion.

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The Crime Doctor

THE CRIME DOCTOR'S COURAGE-1945-Warner Baxter starred in a series of 10 features (from 1943-49) playing Dr. Robert Ordway, "the crime doctor", formerly a criminal who suffers amnesia and turns good. It began life on radio and unlike many of these "whodunnit" series at the same time Ordway isn't usually a suspect in the investigation. 

In "Courage" Ordway investigates the murder of a man who's two previous wives died under mysterious circumstances. Hilary Brooke plays almost wife #3. Two Spanish dancers seem to be vampires. The man is played by usual tough guy Anthony Curuso and his wife is played by Lupita Tovar (who was in the 1931 Spanish version of DRACULA; still alive at the time of this writing).


Baxter is engaging as the doc and it's a well done as far as "quickies" are concerned but a final shootout where two characters fire point blank at each other and miss several times is pretty dumb. Jerome Cowan is on hand to help out. Emory Parnell is a police inspector. Director George Sherman started out doing westerns and made THE LADY AND THE MONSTER in 1944 (the first version of "Donovan's Brain"). He made many more low budget films before going into TV.

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