Thursday 2 April 2009

1942

THE BOOGIE MAN WILL GET YOU 1942 DVD
Winnie Slade, a young divorcee, buys an old historic house from nutty Professor Billings, who lives there with his daffy housekeeper and bizarre neighbors, in order to convert it into a hotel. She allows them to continue to live on the property - unaware that the Professor continues to experiment unsuccessfully on traveling salesmen, the bodies of whom have filled the cellar. They are joined by a variety of eccentric characters including a quack doctor who doubles as the town's sheriff, Winnie's frenetic ex-husband, an oddball choreographer, a punchdrunk traveling salesman, and a lunatic escapee from the Italian army.






The Corpse Vanishes 1942 DVD
After the death of many brides in their weddings and disappearance of their corpses, the snoopy journalist Patricia Hunter (Luana Walters) notes that all of them were wearing an orchid in their breasts. She finds that the hybridization of the orchid was made by Dr. Lorenz (Bela Lugosi), and she decides to interview him about the flowers. She hitchhikes on the road with Dr. Foster (Tristam Coffin) and they are hosted by Dr. Lorenz in his isolated house. Dr. Lorenz is indeed a mad scientist that sleeps with his wife in coffins, and with the assistance of a dwarf and his strong retarded brother, extract gland fluids from the neck of the abducted virgins to keep his elder wife young.



The Bowery at Midnight 1942 DVD
Kindly soup kitchen operator and professor of criminology Bela Lugosi uses his soup kitchen as a front for a criminal gang who commit a series of daring robberies and murders. When things get out of hand, Lugosi kills his henchmen, who wind up as zombies in the cellar of the soup kitchen.


In which we serve 1942 DVD
The story of British Navy Destroyer HMS Torrin, told in flashback by the surviving crew members as they await rescue in the Mediterranean, the ship having been sunk during a battle. This film was something of a tour-de-force for Noel Coward, as he produced, wrote and co-directed it (with a young David Lean). Considering its age, the film stands up quite well today. It obviously seems dated in some respects - the dialogue is quite clipped and stilted at times - but is saved by professional work all round and a clutch of strong performances, namely by Noel Coward himself, John Mills and Bernard Miles. Its also notable for the screen debut of Richard Attenborough.


Ghost of Frankenstein 1942 DVD
The undead Monster and the wily Ygor have survived another mob of angry villagers. Needing help to restore the Monster's strength, Ygor brings his hulking friend to Ludwig Frankenstein, the original doctor's son. Ludwig has built a life and a reputation for himself in another town, far from the stigma and shame that his father and brother brought on the family. Ygor blackmails him. The good Ludwig realizes that the Monster is evil and must be destroyed, but he struggles with the idea of taking a life, even an undead one. He finds a solution: replace the Monster's criminal brain with the brain of his recent victim, the noble Doctor Kettering. But sly Ygor is a step ahead: he manipulates Ludwig's colleague, the jealous Doctor Bohmer, into substituting Ygor's brain for Kettering's. After the operation, the Monster--with his physical strength now guided by Ygor's wicked brain--is more terrible than ever. When will those stuffy scientists finally learn? Luckily, there is a mob of angry villagers outside Frankenstein's house...



The Mummy's Tomb 1942 DVD
A high priest travels to America with the living mummy Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) to kill all those who had desecrated the tomb of the Egyptian princess Ananka thirty years earlier.


The Invisible Agent 1942 DVD
Frank Raymond changed his name and took up a life as the owner of a printing shop in order to distance himself from his former identity: as the grandson of the man who invented the formula for invisibility but ended up shot down by the police. Unfortunately, it's wartime and the formula is coveted by both the Allies and the Axis. Axis spies discover Frank's true identity and force him to leave the shop. Frank believes the formula is too dangerous for any government to possess. But after Pearl Harbor, he agrees to give it to Washington D.C. on one condition: that he be allowed to become an invisible spy. Soon, Frank is behind enemy lines, romancing a beautiful double agent and playing pranks on Nazi officials. But his work is deadly serious. He soon learns of Hitler's secret plan against the United States.



Ride em Cowboy 1942 Laserdisc
The author of best-selling western novels, Bronco Bob Mitchell (Dick Foran), has never set foot in the west. A newspaper article has exposed this fact to his fans, and his image is suffering because of it. He decides to make an appearance at a Long Island charity rodeo to bolster his image. When a steer escapes while he is riding a horse nearby, he is thrown. Not knowing what to do, a cowgirl, Anne Shaw (Anne Gwynne), comes to his rescue and saves his life by bulldogging the steer.

During the rescue, she is injured and cannot compete and loses her chance to obtain the $10,000 prize. Although Bob is grateful, she quickly becomes angry due to his city slicker hotshot personality and returns to her father's dude ranch in Arizona. Bob follows her with the hopes of making amends, and actually learning how to be a real cowboy.



Rio Rita 1942 Laserdisc
This is the first of three films that the duo made on loan to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while under contract to Universal, the other two pictures being Lost in a Harem and Abbott and Costello in Hollywood.
Nazi spies have infiltrated the Hotel Vista del Rio, a resort on the Mexican border. They plan to use a radio broadcast by a famous guest, Ricardo Montera (John Carroll), to transmit coded messages to their cohorts. Doc (Bud Abbott) and Wishy (Lou Costello) are stowaways in Montera's car, who steal a basket of "apples" that turn out being miniature radios used by the spies. Rita Winslow (Kathryn Grayson), the hotel's owner and childhood sweetheart of Montera, hire Doc and Wishy as house detectives, who discover the Nazi codebook and give it to Montera. They are then kidnapped by the spies, and left in a room with a bomb set to explode, but manage to escape while Wishy plants the bomb in the pocket of one of the culprits. Meanwhile, the broadcast has already begun and Montera, refusing to participate in treason, fights the spies until the Texas Rangers arrive. The spies' escape by car is thwarted when the planted bomb finally explodes.


Who done it? 1942 Laserdisc
Chick Larkin (Bud Abbott) and Mervyn Milgrim (Lou Costello) both work at the soda counter of a local radio station. Their true passion, however, is to become writers on the radio mystery show. They attend a broadcast of the radio program Murder at Midnight along with one of the writers, Jimmy Turner (Patric Knowles) and the producer, Jane Little (Louise Allbritton).

As the show begins, the network president, Colonel J.R. Andrews (Thomas Gomez), is mysteriously electrocuted. Seeing this as an opportunity to become radio writers, Chick and Mervyn impersonate detectives and attempt to solve the crime.

Meanwhile, Moran (William Gargan) and Branningan (William Bendix), two real detectives, consider the 'fake' detectives to be prime suspects. A chase ensues throughout the studio and other murders are discovered, including that of Dr. Marek (Ludwig Stossel), Andrews' personal physician. Larkin and Milgrim flee the studio before hearing that Milgrim has apparently won $10,000 on the Wheel of Fortune radio program, for which he must return to the studio in order to claim the prize. Larkin and Milgrim return, only to be arrested by the real detectives, whom Turner and Little manage to convince that there should be a full reenactment of the program that led to the murders, under the ruse that the true culprit will be revealed.

An eavesdropping Nazi spy (Don Porter), who uses the radio station to transmit information to his cohorts, attends the broadcast. It turns out that the spy murdered the Colonel and his physician because they found out about his illegal radio transmissions. During the broadcast, he is revealed to be the killer and escapes to the roof, where he is nabbed by Larkin and Milgrim.