Pre-Wolfman Lon

 

 (imdb)

A SCREAM IN THE NIGHT-1935-Jack Wilson (Lon Chaney Jr.) is in Singapore planning on arresting thief Johnny Fly (Manuel Lopez) with the help of local guy Wu Ting (Phillip Ahn). He meets old friend Edith (Shelia Terry) and her Uncle Joe (John Ince), who subsequently becomes a victim of Fly and is robbed. Fortunately, the robbers don't get his most valuable ruby, so Wilson and Inspector Green (Richard Cramer) expect Fly to strike again. Wu Ting goes undercover as a peddler but is killed by Butch Curtain (also played by Chaney), one eyed henchman to Fly and his moll, Mora (Zara Tazil). Fly finally gets the ruby by kidnapping Edith. Of course, Mora is jealous of her. Meanwhile, Jack arrests Butch and impersonates him. After a lot of static talk and some fights, good triumphs over evil. 

This musty low budget Astor production has some too dark scenes and bad acting but Chaney is good taking a page out of dad's playbook playing the dual role. It seems this wasn't released until 1943 when Lon had hit the big time. It's one of his 6 movies appearances in 1935.

 Co-Star Richard Cramer made over 200 movie appearances (he's in the WC Fields short A FATAL GLASS OF BEER) but may be more to familiar to some having menaced Laurel & Hardy in several films. John Ince, brother of the ill-fated Thomas, was a director during the silent era. Female lead Shelia Terry left the motion pictures by 1938. She committed suicide in 1957. Director Fred C. Newmeyer (also an actor) made SAFETY LAST! with Harold Lloyd and “Our Gang” shorts.

Thanks for reading!

Confessions

 

 (imdb)

CONFESSIONS OF AN OPIUM EATER-1962-In San Francisco's Chinatown in 1802, a Tong war rages. Soldier of fortune Gilbert de Quincey (the one and only Vincent Price) is hired by newspaper publisher George Wah (Richard Loo) to help stop the auctioning of illegally obtained Chinese women for Chinese men living in the US. Ruby Low (Linda Ho) and Ching Foon (Phillip Ahn) are the leaders. The story features de Quincey in and out of trouble while trying to save the women. He's almost like a secret agent! Visiting an opium den, de Quincey has a pipe and has a wild dream where he fights, run, watches a butcher behead a pig and falls off a roof, all in slow motion! Angelo Rossito appears selling newspapers. 

Rather bizarre drama directed by Albert Zugsmith (SEX KITTENS GO TO COLLEGE). It's based on the novel of the same name by Thomas De Quincey.

 (amazon.com)

Thanks for reading!

Meow

 

 (imdb)

THE CREEPER-1948-A doctor's daughter sleepwalks with her dad's gun. At a medical facility, Dr. Jim Bordon (Onslow Stevens) argues with Dr. Cavigny (Ralph Morgan) about his experiments with cats. Nurse Gwen Runstrom (June Vincent) reports that their special serum has been destroyed. The other nurse Dora (Janis Wilson), Cavigny's gun toting sleepwalker daughter, seems more than a little bothered having had a fever when they were in the West Indies. Bordon has some experimental cats sent to him. Meanwhile Dr. Van (Eduardo Ciannelli) listens secretly to the whole debate. Van works with Dr. John Reade (John Baragrey) across the hall researching allergies. It seems Reade and Gwen are engaged. Dora freaks out when she meets Reed's cat named "Creeper" (is that a cat name?). 

Later Dora relates to Reade how she caught a fever and later had an episode at a Chinese restaurant.(run by Phillip Ahn). She has several dreams she's being menaced by a giant cat paw. When her dad is murdered she's arrested. She's let go for lack of evidence but the cat handler Andre (David Hoffman) is killed by what appears to be a man size cat but only a shadow is seen. A police inspector (Richard Lane) snoops around. 

There's not much except a few more murders and a kind of dumb ending. Director Jean Yarbrough doesn't have much to work with here but keeps this low budget 20^th Century Fox release quick and short.