(imdb)

TOMORROW WE LIVE-1942-Julie (Jean Parker) lives in the desert with her cafe owner father Pop (Emmett Lyn). He's involved in some shady deals with a club owner known as "The Ghost" (Ricardo Cortez). He doesn't like Bob (William Marshall), Julie's soldier boyfriend. One night Pop goes to the cafe and demands Julie stop seeing Bob. It turns out The Ghost is blackmailing dad because he's a wanted criminal. After The Ghost kills Pop at the cafe, he runs into trouble with rival gangster Kohler (Frank Hagney). 

A weird compact little film noir by Edgar Ulmer with an interesting performance by Cortez. Star Parker was later in Ulmer's BLUEBEARD.

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The Walking Karloff

THE WALKING DEAD-1936-The public believes Judge Shaw (Joe King) will never sentence guilty gangster Stephen Martin (Kenneth Harland) to anything extreme but much to everyone's disbelief  Shaw gives the thug 10 years. His sleazy lawyer Nolan (Ricardo Cortez)) and mob boss Loder (Barton McLane) hire hit man Trigger Sith (Joe Sawyer) to kill the judge. They set up ex-con pianist John Ellman (Boris Karloff) to take the fall. Two lab assistants Jimmy (Warren Hull) and Nancy (Marguerite Churchill; in DRACULA'S DAUGHTER the same year)) know Ellman is innocent but stupidly she doesn't want them to say anything. Ellman is convicted and sentence to death (good going, guys). At the last minute they tell their boss Dr. Beaumont (Edmund Gwenn) and he tells the crooked lawyer (who defended Ellman and helped frame him). Of course he does nothing. Ellman dies but fortunately (?) Beaumont has a machine that brings Ellman back to life. 

When revived Ellman is the worse for wear and can't remember anything. But when he hears Nancy playing the piano he sits down and starts to play. When he sees Nolan he calls him his enemy. Beaumont calls a conference with other egghead types that Loder, Nolan and their weak willed cronies also attend. They all get guilty conscientious and want to hire the same hit man as before but Ellman scares Trigger and he shoots himself. He then scares another member who's hit by a train and causes another to have a heart attack and fall out a window. 

Beaumont becomes kind of obsessed with knowing what Ellman felt when he was dead. Ellman leaves to walk around a cemetery and Mary follows him. Unbeknownst to her Loder and Nolan trail her. They shoot Ellman and get away. On his second death bed, Ellman tries to explain what death was like but dies before anything can be said. Ironically, Loder and Nolan are electrocuted when their getaway car crashes into an electric pole. 

Karloff is very sympathetic in the lead but doesn't have much dialogue. Director Michael Curtiz also made THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE the same year. Co-star Ricardo Cortez was in POSTAL INSPECTOR with Lugosi the same year. 

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Charlie In The Big Apple

MURDER OVER NEW YORK-1940-On a plane en route to NYC for a police convention, Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) meets his old friend Inspector Drake of Scotland Yard (Frederick Worlock). Drake is on the trial of a saboteur named Narda and his Hindu servant Ramullah (Lal Chand Mehra) who seem to have vanished so he’s been following Narda’s wife. Drake seems like a future victim especially after being invited to a party given by the smarmy and suspicious George Kirby (Ricardo Cortez). Then when Chan is met by Inspector Vance (Donald MacBride), No. 2 son Jimmy (Sen Yung) shows up! Sure enough, Drake is murdered in Kirby's study, killed by a odorless gas. There are many suspects of course including June Preston (Joan Valerie), an actress, chemist David Elliot (Robert Lowery) , Ralph Percy (Kane Richmond), a guy named Richard Jeffery (John Sutton), a pompous Englishman Herbert Fenton (Melville Cooper) and Patricia West (Mariorie Weaver)and Narda’s wife who turns out not to be a collaborator.

 An hysterical but politically incorrect scene involves a police lineup of local Hindi men where a phony mystic is played by Shemp Howard! They find Narda’s servant but he’s killed. His curio shop turns out to be a front for making poison gas! This method seems similar to the M. O. of the the kiiler in MR. WONG DETECTIVE (1938). Eventually Charlie gets all the suspects on a moving plane and reveals the real killer (Narda with plastic surgery). Jimmy is really a pest in this. Clarence Muse has one scene as stereotypical scared suspect. 

Director Harry Lachman directed DEAD MEN TELL the next year.

https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2015/07/chan-returns.html

Mr. Wong: https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2017/07/mr-wong.html

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Bela!

POSTAL INSPECTOR-1936- Bill Davis, a postal inspector (Ricardo Cortez) investigates mail fraud and meets famous singer Connie Larrimore (Patricia Ellis) on a plane during a storm. She sings “When You're Through with Your Shower” to calm the passengers. Later she meets her old friend Charlie Davis (Michael Loring) who works for the Federal Reverse and is Bill's brother. Gregory Benez (Bela Lugosi), the owner of the night club Connie sings at owes a gangster 50 thou. He learns that the Federal Reverse is transferring 3 million dollars in old money and he and his partners steal it while Bill deals with a flood. A high speed chase through a flooded town is the finale. Hattie McDaniels and Frank Wilcox have un-billed roles.

 POSTAL INSPECTOR is a neat little B film trying to actually give insight on the work of the US Post Office and how it deals with crime. But the real reason to see it is Bela's turn as the uptight gangster (an untypical role for him to be playing at the time). Director Otto Brower had made THE PHANTOM EMPIRE with Gene Autry the year before and made other “programmers” like POSTAL INSPECTOR. 

However as a second unit director Brower on worked bigger films like THE GRAPES OF WRATH, BRIGHAM YOUNG and WESTERN UNION (sometimes with no credit). He died of a heart attack in 1946 while doing second unit work on DUEL IN THE SUN. Screenwriter Horace McCoy wrote B movies and his novel THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY was adapted into a movie in 1969 (after two previously failed attempts). Lead actress Patricia Ellis starred in movies with Joe E. Brown, James Cagney and Jack Haley but retired form films in the late 30's.

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