Wise Thriller

 

 (imdb)

HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL-1951-A woman (Valentina Cortese) in a Nazi prison takes on the identity of her friend Karen who died there. She comes to America looking for her “son” Chris who is heir to a fortune. In NY, she meets Chris’ guardian Allen (Richard Basehart) who she eventually marries. They go to San Francisco and meet Chris (Gordon Gebert) and then go live in the title house where she has a problem with housekeeper Margaret (Fay Baker) who seems as though she might have a secret agenda with Allen. Especially when the brakes fail on Karen's car. She tells Allen's sort of friend, Marc (William Lundigan), she thinks Allen is trying to kill her and Chris. Or is it just in Karen's mind? 

An ironic twist ending reveals everything. Nice little thriller directed by Robert Wise who made THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL the same year.

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Dual Belas!

 BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT-1942-Prof. Brenner (Bela Lugosi) is a criminology teacher by day and at night he's Karl Wagner who runs a Bowery mission that's a front for robbery and murder. Sgt. Crawford (Dave O'Brien) investigates. Wagner's M.O. is to kill one accomplice at the scene of a crime. He recruits psycho killer Frank Mills (Tom Neal; he'd star in DETOUR in 1945) to help. Wagner's nurse Judy (Wanda McKay) doesn't suspect but her boyfriend Richard (John Archer) goes undercover as a bum to study the underprivileged and winds up dead. The nutty ending has an insane doctor resurrecting Wagner's dead victims who in turn kill him. Since Richard comes back to life he and Judy live happily ever after. When Richard is on the Bowery he meets two oddballs almost in a row. One is played by Pat Costello and the other by Bernard Gorcey! Wheeler Oakman, Victor Adamson and Snub Pllard have small roles.

Director Wallace Fox made several "East Side Kids" comedies (that were set in The Bowery) and directed Lugosi in THE CORPSE VANISHES the same year. After making PILLOW OF DEATH, one of the Inner Sanctum series of film at Universal he drifted into low budget westerns then went into TV (The Gene Autry Show, Ramar Of The Jungle). He dies in 1958.

https://moviemeltdown.blogspot.com/2020/01/vanishing-bride.html

Sam Katzman was the executive producer of this low budget quickie released through Monogram but it's not bad despite some lapses in reason!

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Hugo Haas

ONE GIRL'S CONFESSION-1953-Mary Adams (Cleo Moore), curvy, platinum blonde waitress at a greasy spoon gets revenge on her boss (because he cheated her father) by stealing 25 thousand dollars from him. She confesses to the crime (but won't tell where she hid the money) and goes to jail. After she's paroled she gets a job working for cheerful gambling saloon owner Dragomie Damitrof (director Hugo Haas). She meets fisherman Johnny (pre-Amazing Colossal Man Glen Langan) and they fall in love. She debates using the the hidden money to help finance Johnny's fishing business (so they can live happily ever after). Although he's a lucky gambler somehow Damitrof loses his whole business in one night. Mary decides to help her boss by having him dig up the money and giving him 5 thou to save his hide. Unfortunately he doesn't find it. He throws her out. Later it turns out Damitrof still owns his saloon and has lots of cash. Hmmmm? Could this be a double cross? Did Damitrof actually find Mary's money and have the audacity to lie to her and keep it? With the door to his apartment left conveniently open Mary confronts her double crossing boss (in a drunken stupor) and winds up bopping him on the head and killing him! Bad move! Seems Damitrof wasn't using Mary's money. He got lucky in a card game and won everything back! She finds her money, gives it to an orphanage and turns herself in. The End....Well, not really. In the twist ending (like many Haas dramas), Damitrof didn't die, Mary gave her ill gained booty away but she probably lives happily ever after with Johnny.

Czech born actor/director Hugo Haas began his Hollywood acting career in the middle '40's and in 1951 directed his first of 20 B-movies. Many of them are moralistic melodramas sometimes using the premise of an older man (usually Haas) involved with a younger woman.

ONE GIRL'S CONFESSION's female lead Cleo Moore starred in seven Haas directed dramas. She was once groomed as Columbia Pictures' "new Marilyn Monroe" but despite her looks and decent acting skills her career never panned out and she retired in 1957, the same year co-star Glenn Langan would go down in B-movie history starring in Bert I. Gordon's THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN!

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Un-Something

UNDEAD-2003-This gore horror-comedy from Australia reminded a lot of Peter Jackson's BAD TASTE (and SHAUN OF THE DEAD) with it's extreme violent SFX but I didn't care for it. 

In Queensland, a meteorite shower turns residents into human eating zombies. A woman named Rene (Felicity Mason) takes shelter in the cabin of the local weirdo (Mungo McKay) who seems to know a lot about the zombies. They are joined by a few other people (including a pregnant woman) who yell, curse, cry and act like morons.

This was made by twin brothers Michael and Peter Spierig who really think their unoriginal plot, bad acting and dumb comic situations are very clever. They do thrown in a twist ending involving some aliens but by then it's too late. The 90 mins of your life that you wasted watching this crap is gone forever! 

After this The Spierigs made DAYBREAKERS which featured vampires. 

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PS: Wkipedia list of still living silent screen stars:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_silent_film_actors