Short Crime Drama

 

 (imdb)

SQUAD CAR-1960-Lt. Beck (Paul Bryar) investigates the murder of an airplane mechanic involved in a counterfeiting ring. A crop duster operator Jay Rinehart (Don Marlowe) is Beck's prime suspect. He's doing some smuggling for Mr. Stahl (Jack Harris) who makes threats against Jeannie (Lynn Moore), Rinehart's girlfriend. Also involved is Cameo Kincaide (Vici Raaf), a nightclub singer, who was dating the dead guy. A narrator (Art Gilmore) helps move the plot along. Even though Stahl tries to kill Cameo they wind up teaming together and sharing the phony loot but after Cameo shoots Jeannie, Rinehart helps Beck nail the guilty party.

This is like a pilot for a TV crime drama with a cliched script and the Beck character reminding me of Broderick Crawford's role in the TV series “Highway Patrol”. It's the only feature film credit for director Ed Leftwich. 

Star Marlowe managed Bela Lugosi for a short while (around the time of ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN). He claimed to have negotiated the role for the actor but details are sketchy. He often said (even in his autobiography) that he portrayed Porky in the “Our Gang” comedies but this has been proven false. Years after Lugosi's death he hawked some memorabilia related to Lugosi in various movie magazines.

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Satan's Zombies

 (deviant art)

 DOCTOR SATAN-1966-A mad doctor/occultist Arozamena (Jaoquin Cordero) has some resurrected dead men do his bidding. At a cemetery he makes a deal with a winged devil. Meanwhile an Interpol agent Mateos (Jose Galvez) and his female assistant investigate a case of counterfeit money that has been spreading over town. Unbeknownst to them the crazy Arozamena is using that phony money to create an army of zombies to rule the world!! Or something like that.....

Half of this film is a crime drama and the other is an atmospheric supernatural horror story. Both halves were directed by Miguel Morayta (INVASION OF THE VAMPIRES).

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Charlie Again!

DANGEROUS MONEY1946--Charlie Chan investigates the smuggling of counterfeit “hot” money after a treasury agent (Tris Coffin) is killed. There's many suspects plus annoying comedy bits Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) and chauffeur Chattanooga (Willie Best in his last Chan movie). The main suspects are loud mouth cotton seller Burke (Dick Elliot), knife thrower Kirk (John Harmon), American trader Tao Erickson (Rick Vallin), Brace, the ship's purser (Joseph Allen) and his girlfriend Rona (Gloria Allen), a professor (Emmett Vogan) and The Whipples, upper class twits on an ocean liner bound for Samoa. The killer uses a knife gun. 

This low budget Monogram mystery based on the character created by Earl Derr Biggers (in 1925) was the 39^th story in a series of 47 Chan movies began back in the mid-thirties by Universal Pictures. Star Toler was instrumental in getting Monogram to produce a new Chan series when it was dropped by Fox in 1942. Though still fun, they are noticably lower budget. 

Director Terry O. Morse was also an editor and had directed Karloff in BRITISH INTELLIGENCE in 1940. Later he worked on the US shot scenes in GODZILLA-KING OF MONSTERS. 

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