John Daheim
This is Academy Award-winning sound designer and editor Ben Burtt's novel edit of the 215-minute Spy Smasher serial (released as a 12-chapter serial action adventure by Republic Pictures in 1942), into one 94-minute feature. Spy Smasher was based on a popular comic book character and tells the exciting tale of a costumed hero battling the Nazis in the early days of America's entry into World War II. Burtt has also enhanced the sound effects, remastered the mix in stereo surround, included new special effects footage and added a few new scenes. This "love letter to Republic" is a special edition that brings to life a new crackerjack thriller that would leave Indiana Jones breathless.
A somewhat daffy book editor on a rail trip from Los Angeles to Chicago thinks that he sees a murdered man thrown from the train. When he can find no one who will believe him, he starts doing some investigating of his own. But all that accomplishes is to get the killer after him.
A quick-witted drifter wanders into a lawless town in the midst of a gold rush. Shocked by the prices of food and meals he reluctantly takes the job of sheriff by amazing the Mayor with his lightning quick, dead eye pistol accuracy. He makes the town council know that he is really just passing through on his way to Australia and he will pull up and leave anytime he chooses (including at the first sign of real trouble). His first day on the job he takes on the biggest, meanest ranching family and meets his klutzy love interest.
Flint is again called out of retirement when his old boss finds that he seems to have missed 90 seconds while golfing with the president. Flint finds that the president has been replaced by an actor (Flint's line [with a wistful look] is "An Actor as President?") Flint finds that a group of women have banded together to take over the world through subliminal brainwashing in beauty salons they own.
Henry Thomas tries to overcome the horrors of his childhood and start a new life with his wife and kid. However, his abusive step-mother and his dependence on alcohol threaten to ruin his future.
Von Ryan's Express stars Frank Sinatra as a POW colonel who leads a daring escape from WWII Italy by taking over a freight train, but he has to win over the British soldiers he finds himself commanding.
An intelligent, articulate scholar, Harrison MacWhite, survives a hostile Senate confirmation hearing at the hands of conservatives to become ambassador to Sarkan, a southeast Asian country where civil war threatens a tense peace. Despite his knowledge, once he's there, MacWhite sees only a dichotomy between the U.S. and Communism. He can't accept that anti-American sentiment might be a longing for self-determination and nationalism. So, he breaks from his friend Deong, a local opposition leader, ignores a foreman's advice about slowing the building of a road, and tries to muscle ahead. What price must the country and his friends pay for him to get some sense?
The rebellious Thracian Spartacus, born and raised a slave, is sold to Gladiator trainer Batiatus. After weeks of being trained to kill for the arena, Spartacus turns on his owners and leads the other slaves in rebellion. As the rebels move from town to town, their numbers swell as escaped slaves join their ranks. Under the leadership of Spartacus, they make their way to southern Italy, where they will cross the sea and return to their homes.
As the Civil War spills our nation’s blood, Capt. John Hayes (Randolph Scott) fights on a vital but little-known battlefront. He aims to ship gold to Union banks through a small Colorado town, defying Southern sympathizers who aim to stop him. At any cost. As chiseled and bone-lean as its star, Westbound is the sixth of seven Westerns Scott made with director Budd Boetticher, films that – along with the James Stewart-Anthony Mann Westerns – helped remake the genre in the 50s, substituting grit and veracity for white-hat heroics.
Two men are released from the Arizona Territorial Prison at Yuma in 1898. One, the Dutchman, is out to get both gold and revenge from the people of a small mining town who had him imprisoned unjustly. The other, McBain, is just trying to go straight, but that is easier said than done once the Dutchman involves him in his gold theft scheme.
Grant MacLaine, a former railroad troubleshooter, lost his job after letting his outlaw brother, the Utica Kid, escape. After spending five years wandering the west and earning his living playing the accordion, he is given a second chance by his former boss.
The sheriff of Gunlock is planning to hang Sam Hall, who shot three farmers found on cattle land, at sundown. At the casino, betting is 8 to 3 he won't make it. The cattlemen are set to rescue Sam; the farmers hope to lynch him before he can be rescued; and Hall schemes for escape with his girl Nellie. But Sheriff Jorden is most concerned with finding out who hired Hall: a leading suspect is the sheriff's future brother-in-law.
While Carl (Meeker) is at work, his wife Elsa (Miles) is apparently attacked and left traumatized. Later, driving in town, Elsa points out a man as her attacker, so an enraged Carl kills him in his hotel room. But moments later, Elsa, still mentally disturbed, identifies another man as her attacker.
Jean Evans of an international wildlife foundation, who is known to Africa as 'the Panther Girl' because of her bravery in jungle living, stumbles on a plot by a mad scientist to frighten the natives out of a diamond-laden district by chemically growing crayfish to giant size, and enlists the aid of a game hunter friend to prevent a monster rampage and bring the culprits to justice.
A ship sent to investigate a wave of mysterious sinkings encounters the advanced submarine, the Nautilus, commanded by Captain Nemo.
19th-century army officer Lance Caldwell is assigned to Fort King in the Everglades. Immediately clashing with his commanding officer Major Dade, Caldwell opposes Dade's plans to wipe out the Seminole Indians. The fact that Caldwell was the boyhood chum of Seminole chief Osceola is all the more reason to resist Dade's genocidal policies. After a deadly confrontation which costs dozens of lives on both sides, Osceola rescues Caldwell, whereupon the latter is court-martialed. Later on, Osceola comes to Fort King to talk peace, and is promptly killed by persons unknown. An attempt is made to frame Caldwell for the killing, but the truth eventually prevails.
During the war for Texas independence, one man leaves the Alamo before the end (chosen by lot to help others' families) but is too late to accomplish his mission, and is branded a coward. Since he cannot now expose a gang of turncoats, he infiltrates them instead. Can he save a wagon train of refugees from Wade's Guerillas?
A man has kidnaped an engraver and has him forging Mexican bills. He captures wild horses supposedly to sell for hides but uses them to transport the bills across the border. Police captain Juan Reyes (Richard Avonde) is posing as a bandit to uncover the counterfeiters smuggling fake pesos into Mexico, and is assisted by feisty youngsters Red (Michael Chapin) and Judy (Eilene Janssen), who are trying to protect the wild horses being used by the gang. The kids suspect that rancher Big John Harkins (Roy Barcroft) is the leader of the gang and that he is forcing Mexican artist Espinosa (Julian Rivero) to help him.
The Hurley's own a lumber mill and want to harvest all the timber in the valley. They kill the Forester and substitute their brother Dusty in his place. Dusty then says all the trees are infected and must be cut down. But Rex Allen is suspicious and writes to the Forestry Department and gets involved with the murders.
Mobster Nick Scanlon (Ryan) has managed to buy several of the local government and law-enforcement officials. However, he can't seem to touch the incorruptible police captain Tom McQueeg (Mitchum), who refuses all attempts at bribery. Prosecuting attorney, Welch (Collins), and a police detective, Turck (Conrad), are crooked and make McQueeg's job as an honest officer nearly impossible.
Nick Ferraro, deported crime boss, needs to re-enter the USA. His plan involves "honest" gambler Dan Milner, who's subjected to a series of "misfortunes," then bribed to take a trip to Mexico. En route, Dan meets chanteuse Lenore Brent, truly his kind of woman. But on arrival at posh Morros Lodge in Baja California, Dan finds the ostensibly rich, carefree guests all playing roles...except, possibly, ham actor Mark Cardigan. What does Ferraro want with him? Can he trust anyone?
Boxer Tommy Nelson is accused of killing his manager. While detectives Bud and Lou investigate they come across an invisibility formula with which Tommy injects himself rather than face the police. This sparks an idea for trapping gangster Morgan by having Lou fight champ Rocky Hanlon, with Tommy's invisible help
Mota is a Martian representative, who has come to impose interplanetary law on the Earth (which has become too dangerous); opposing his authority is Kent Fowler, who resists the alien plot, without understanding its details.
A police detective's violent nature keeps him from being a good cop.
Paula Consodine comes to Los Angeles in search of her missing sister. Newspaperman Mark Sitko, investigating on Paula's behalf, discovers that the sister is dead, a supposed suicide. The whole thing seems a bit fishy to Sitko, and indeed it is: the girl's death was engineered by a black-market adoption racket, headed by one DeCola.
An escaped criminal impersonates a Police Commissioner, causing no end of trouble to a determined Federal Agent.
A romantic drifter gets caught between a corrupt tycoon and his voluptuous wife.
Stevie Carson, a newspaper reporter, and Denny Butler, the feature editor on the same newspaper, set out to track down a gang of literary forgers who are making a fortune off of selling fake first editions.
After a rapid engagement, a dowdy daughter of a chemist weds an industrialist, knowing little of his family or past. He transforms her into an elegant society wife, but becomes enraged whenever she asks about Michael, his mysterious long-lost brother.
Two young men set out on a fishing trip. They run into a gang of criminals who are menacing two young women.
When the unscrupulous Carlos Manning discovers that an old Spanish land grant recently unearthed will leave a huge section of California real estate to the heirs of Don Quantero, he employs Mel Donovan and his killer henchmen to murder them all. That will leave Manning as the sole heir to millions. However, Delores Quantero tumbles to this plot and enlists the aide of two-fisted reporter, Cliff Roberts to save all her relatives
American, Chinese and Australian agents join forces to stop the Nazis from obtaining the formula for synthetic fuel.
A wildcat oil outfit is seeking to take over the ranch belonging to Pop Martin and his son Bob and daughter Helen. Bob sends his ex-army pals a "stay-way" message, which brings them on the double. The WW II vets use their jeeps, first for a cattle roundup, and then to round up the gang of crooks, including the crooked family-lawyer Thatcher, brains of the gang.
A Martian invader crashes his spaceship conveniently close to the workshop of a scientist who is developing an interplanetary craft. If the extraterrestrial Purple Monster can complete the rocket ship and return to Mars, he will be able to start a full-scale invasion of Earth. Good thing Craig Foster sets out to thwart the Monster's mission!
An American secret agent travels to Africa to infiltrate a Nazi spy ring.
Wounded while stopping the James gang from robbing the local bank, a cowboy wakes up in the hospital to find that he's been elected town marshal. He soon comes into conflict with the town banker, who controls everything in town and is squeezing the townspeople for every penny he can get out of them.
A team of two-fisted insurance investigators (one of whom disguises himself as The Masked Marvel) endeavor to discover and thwart the loathsome saboteur Sakima.
Japanese spies attempt to subvert America's war effort; G-Men attempt to thwart their plot.
Johnny Brett and King Shaw are an unsuccessful dance team in New York. A producer discovers Brett as the new partner for Clare Bennett, but Brett, who thinks he is one of the people they lent money to, gives him the name of his partner.
An aspiring actress is offered the lead in a major new play, but discovers that her mother, a more seasoned performer, expects the same part. The situation is further complicated when they both become involved with the same man.
Although loudmouthed braggart Jerry Plunkett alienates his comrades and officers, Father Duffy, the regimental chaplain, has faith that he'll prove himself in the end.
Eddie sells his song to a Broadway producer and also lands a job dancing in the musical. He sends for his dance partner-fiancée Molly who brings her younger sister Pat. Upon seeing Molly and Pat dance, the producer picks Pat for the show and gives Molly a job selling cigarettes. A wealthy friend of the Producer named Chad, also has is eye on Pat. Pat is teamed with Eddie in the specialty number as Kerns and Mahoney. Pat and Eddie soon realize that they are in love and must tell Molly. Pat balks at hurting Molly and goes out with Chad who already has five ex-wives.
The second of a series of four features Monogram made based on the comic strip by Hal Forrest (Universal also used the strip characters in two serials), finds a movie company shooting a war picture at Three Points airport, with Tailspin Tommy Tompkins as a stunt pilot in the film. Tommy is incensed by the complete disregard for human life shown by the film's director, Sheehan, and quits. Sheehan gets a replacement pilot named Earl Martin, who is known as a reckless pilot who will try an aerial stunt for a thrill. He hand Tommy get into a fight when Martin takes Betty Lou Barnes for a ride in a plane that is practically falling apart.
A pampered heiress (Madeleine Carroll) elopes with a shipboard reporter (Fred MacMurray) just to get her name in a society column.
"Tailspin Tommy" Tompkins and "Skeeter" Milligan are training young U. S. Army fliers for the newly-formed 'Sky Patrol,'a branch of the Army Reserves which operates along the borders and coast-lines, on the lookout for smugglers. Carter Meade, whose father is the Colonel in charge of the patrol, has a terror of firing guns and his father insists he conquer this fear. Tommy sends him out on patrol, on orders from Washington D. C., to stop any unfamiliar aircraft. Carter challenges an unmarked amphibian plane, which opens fire on him. Carter, afraid to shoot, bails out as his plane is shot down. Carter is missing, and Tommy and Skeeter are searching for him and the mysterious airplane.
Right before the dancing Tobius' ought to film a new production, his wife tells Freddy Tobius that she's pregnant. So the producer desperately has to seek a replacement and starts a countrywide competition among all college girls. However the contest is bogus: young dancer Patty Marlow is sent to a little college in the Midwest. Only Pug, a college reporter, suspects something.
