A treasury agent traveling aboard a ocean liner confides to fellow passenger Charlie Chan that he’s on the trail of a counterfeiting ring operating from the South Pacific and has survived two recent attempts on his life. Chan helps him avoid a third but is helpless to prevent a knife thrown in his back in the ship’s club room. Although the ship will be docking shortly in Samoa, Charlie is confident that he will unmask the killer before then. Among the suspects are an elitist reverend and his wife, a beautiful young woman traveling with forged papers, a shady loudmouth of a salesman, a larcenous ship’s steward, and a professional knife-thrower.
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Mystery
The Scarlet Clue (1945) Phil Rosen, Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland, Ben Carter, Comedy, Crime, Mystery
Charlie Chan investigates the theft of government radar papers (the laboratory is located in the same building as a radio station!) with the help of Number Three Son Tommy and comic sidekick Birmingham Brown.
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Love Kills (1991) Brian Grant, Virginia Madsen, Lenny von Dohlen, Erich Anderson, Mystery, Action, Crime
Glamorous fashion photographer Rebecca is getting even. Angered by her husband’s infidelity, she takes a lover – a mysterious hunk she fist met during a photo shoot. He’s exciting. He’s handsome. And, after a night of lovemaking, he confesses he’s a hit man hired by her husband to kill her. The stranger also says he’s had a change of heart and wants to be Rebecca’s protector. But Rebecca’s husband, a renowned psychologist, insists the man is a former patient with a hidden, twisted agenda. Both men can’t be right. Both could be lying. As the circle of suspense closes in on her, one thing is clear to Rebecca. Any choice she makes could be more than wrong…it could be fatal.
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The Secret Partner (1961) Basil Dearden, Stewart Granger, Bernard Lee, Haya Harareet, Crime, Drama, Mystery
A wealthy London-based shipping magnate is blackmailed by an evil dentist which threatens to reveal an old case of fraud, while the dentist himself is threaten by a mysterious masked man.
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Walk on Water (2004) Eytan Fox, Lior Ashkenazi, Knut Berger, Caroline Peters, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Eyal, an Israeli Mossad agent, is given the mission to track down and kill the very old Alfred Himmelman, an ex-Nazi officer, who might still be alive. Pretending to be a tourist guide, he befriends his grandson Axel, in Israel to visit his sister Pia. The two men set out on a tour of the country during which, Axel challenges Eyal’s values.
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The Man Who Wouldn’t Die (1942) Herbert I. Leeds, Lloyd Nolan, Marjorie Weaver, Helene Reynolds, Crime, Mystery
In the shadows of the night Dudley Wolff (Paul Harvey), his secretary Alfred Dunning (Robert Emmett Keane), and his doctor, Haggard (Henry Wilcoxon), bury a body in the estate cemetery. At the house, Wolff’s daughter Catherine (Marjorie Weaver) arrives unexpectedly and tells her step-mother Anne Wolff (Helene Reynolds that she has just been married to Roger Blake (Richard Derr) who will be along in a few days. Cathy retires and is awakened by a mysterious assailant who fires a shot at her, but her parents tell her she was just dreaming. Wolff goes to the cemetery and finds the body missing. The scared Cathy calls in fast-talking private detective Mike Shayne (Lloyd Nolan) and, since her father doesn’t like detectives, she introduces him as her husband. That evening Shayne hears a shot and finds that Haggard has been killed. While the police are questioning the family, the lights go out and a shot is fired from outside.
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Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958) Michael Anderson, Richard Todd, Anne Baxter, Herbert Lom, Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A man shows up at Kimberley Prescott’s villa claiming to be her brother. But Ward Prescott died in a car accident a year ago, so how can this man be him? Despite Kim’s protests that the stranger isn’t her brother, everyone else accepts him, including their uncle. Kim begins to fear for her sanity and her life.
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Electra Glide in Blue (1973) James William Guercio, Robert Blake, Billy Green Bush, Mitchell Ryan, Crime, Drama, Mystery
A short Arizona motorcycle cop gets his wish and is promoted to Homicide following the mysterious murder of a hermit. He is forced to confront his illusions about himself and those around him in order to solve the case, eventually returning to solitude in the desert.
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The Rapture (1991) Michael Tolkin, Mimi Rogers, David Duchovny, Darwyn Carson, Drama, Mystery
This is the story of a young woman (who lives in Los Angeles) with a very boring job. At night however, she and a male partner cruise the bars as swingers. After a time, she begins to believe that a conspiracy exists and decides that she must become a born-again Christian. The movie presents an interesting view of how even the most unlikely person might become born-again.
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Rembrandt’s J’Accuse…! (2008) Peter Greenaway, Martin Freeman, Eva Birthistle, Jodhi May, Documentary, Mystery
An ‘essayistic’ documentary in which Greenaway’s fierce criticism of today’s visual illiteracy is argued by means of a forensic search of Rembrandt’s Nightwatch. Greenaway explains the background, the context, the conspiracy, the murder and the motives of all its thirty-four painted characters who have conspired to kill for their combined self-advantage. Greenaway leads us through Rembrandt’s paintings into seventeenth-century Amsterdam. He paints a world that is democratic in principle, but is almost entirely ruled by twelve families. The notion exists of these regents as charitable and compassionate entities. However, reality was different.
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