A distraught disc jockey (Gregory Hines) seeks out a mystery caller (Debrah Farentino) who may be the killer of his girlfriend (Laura Harrington).
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Author Archives: rarefilm
Angels and Insects (1995) Philip Haas, Mark Rylance, Kristin Scott Thomas, Patsy Kensit, Drama, Romance
The movie is a study of a family of country gentry in Victorian England. William Adamson, a young scientist, is introduced into the Alabaster family by Reverend Mr Alabaster who is also fascinated by insects. William marries the older daughter of the family and studies the amounts of insects in the garden of the villa. His – for the gentry – strange behaviors reveal at the same time their own failures and passions.
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The Black Camel (1931) Hamilton MacFadden, Warner Oland, Sally Eilers, Bela Lugosi, Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Movie star Sheila Fayne is seeing wealthy Alan Jaynes while filming in Honolulu, Hawaii, but won’t marry him without consulting famed psychic Tanaverro first. Tanaverro confronts her about the unsolved murder of fellow film star Denny Mayo three years earlier, and she decides to reject Jaynes’ proposal. When Sheila is found shot to death in her beach-front pavilion, Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police investigates.
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The Loves of Joanna Godden (1947) Charles Frend, Robert Hamer, Googie Withers, Jean Kent, John McCallum, Drama
The story of a woman who loved three men for their different ways and discovered after many a heartache, that her first love was also her true love. Edward the Peacemaker was on the throne of England when Joanna Godden’s father died and bequeathed a large farm on the Romney Marsh of Kent. Beautiful, impetuous, self-willed, Joanna determined to defy convention and – a mere woman – run the farm herself. Her decision outraged the whole shire – not least her farmer neighbour Arthur Alce.
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The Girl from Chicago (1932) Oscar Micheaux, Grace Smith, Carl Mahon, Eunice Brooks, Crime, Drama
An undercover government agent on a case in Mississipi meets and falls in love with a beautiful young woman who’s being menaced by a local crime boss. He rescues the girl, and they leave Mississippi and head to Harlem, but their troubles follow them: they become involved in the murder of a local crime boss there.
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The Slender Thread (1965) Frank Tashlin, Dick Powell, Debbie Reynolds, Anne Francis, Comedy, Drama
Mark Christopher is a 35-year old, award-winning comedy scriptwriter who is struggling to be taken seriously as a drama writer. On Christmas Eve, two police officers bring 17-year old Susan (picked up for vagrancy and brawling) to Mark’s apartment. If she spends a few days with him, Mark could use Susan as inspiration to write a script about juvenile-delinquents and Susan could avoid spending Christmas behind bars.
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Who’s Got the Action? (1962) Daniel Mann, Dean Martin, Lana Turner, Eddie Albert, Comedy
A hunch horse-player’s marriage is threatened by his betting ways; in desperation, his wife becomes his bookie.
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To the Ends of the Earth (1948) Robert Stevenson, Dick Powell, Signe Hasso, Maylia, Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller
Based on the files of the United States Department of Treasury. Commissioner Michael Barrows is an American Government Agent. On board a Coast Gaurd boat off the California coast he chases a ship. The Captain of the ship, the Kira Maru, panics and ruthlessly sends 100 Chinese slaves to a watery death. Barrows recovers a live preserver that tells him the ship is out of Shanghai. He travels there to track down the ship’s captain and discovers that these deaths point to a huge drug smuggling operation. In Shanghai, while searching for the captain of the Kira Maru, he becomes suspicious of a women, Ann Grant, believing she’s Jean Hawks the narcotics ringleader. He follows the narcotics trail “to the ends of the Earth” taking him from Shanghai to Cairo, Beirut and Havana to stop the drugs and the jean Hawks ring at the US border.
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The Princess and the Pirate (1944) David Butler, Sidney Lanfield, Bob Hope, Virginia Mayo, Walter Brennan, Adventure, Comedy, Romance
Princess Margaret is travelling incognito to elope with her true love instead of marrying the man her father has betrothed her to. On the high seas, her ship is attacked by pirates who know her identity and plan to kidnap her and hold her for a king’s ransom. Little do the cutthroats know that she will be rescued by that unlikeliest of knights errant, Sylvester the Great, who will lead them on a merry, and madcap, chase.
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The More the Merrier (1943) George Stevens, Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn
It’s World War II and there is a severe housing shortage everywhere – especially in Washington, D.C. where Connie Milligan rents an apartment. Believing it to be her patriotic duty, Connie offers to sublet half of her apartment, fully expecting a suitable female tenent. What she gets instead is mischievous, middle-aged Benjamin Dingle. Dingle talks her into subletting to him and then promptly sublets half of his half to young, irreverent Joe Carter – creating a situation tailor-made for comedy and romance.
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