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Having Wonderful Crime spotlights Michael J. Malone, the murder-solving attorney created by author Craig Rice. The film is also ostensibly based on a novel by Rice, though precious little of the original actually made it to the screen. The story begins as Malone (Pat O’Brien) brusquely informs his newlywed friends Jake and Helene Justus (George Murphy and Carole Landis) that he’s not going to allow them to suck him into another murder mystery. Unfortunately for the attorney, Jake and Helene shortly afterward attend a stage magic show wherein the star magician (George Zucco) disappears for real! Their investigation leads to a resort hotel literally packed with murder suspects. When the newlyweds learn too much for their own good, it’s up to Malone to come to the rescue and nab the killer. One of the suspects is played by an actress named Anje Berens, who as “Gloria Holden” previously starred in Dracula’s Daughter (1936).
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Farmer Brand can’t read and he is quite happy with that. His wife, Keet, who has to read him all the subtitles on the television, isn’t. She decides to hire a teacher for him. This is a beautiful young woman, called Lena. Brand falls in love with her. To his puzzlement and dismay Keet encourages him, because as she says she doesn’t want a husband with another woman in his head. She wants their love to grow stale. She also wants Lena to give Brand and her a son. The love between Brand and Lena does not grow stale easily and after the birth of little Teun, their strange menage a trois comes to a dramatic conclusion.
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The 18th century tale of a youngster whose memories, recounted after death, are a long series of wrong moral choices ending up with his killing his evil alter-ego, that is committing suicide.
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After a nasty argument with her boyfriend Carl, young Gaby spontaneously accepts her girlfriend invitation to join her on a vacation to Manila. Her plans to forget about Carl succeed very rapidly as she meets Dr. Andreas Witzig, a young scholar who plans to marry his fiancee on the island. During the following days, Gaby tries her best to convince the man of her dreams to change his mind.
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A nearly naked woman lies face down in bed, moaning in pleasure as a man (Robert) holds her down and whispers that she shouldn’t be so loud or she’ll wake the baby…
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Vienna glove-sales-lady Christl falls in love to Czar Alexander. Metternich tries to use this to keep him out of the conferences of the Vienna Congress from 1815.
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Melanie Daniels is the modern rich socialite, part of the jet-set who always gets what she wants. When lawyer Mitch Brenner sees her in a pet shop, he plays something of a practical joke on her, and she decides to return the favor. She drives about an hour north of San Francisco to Bodega Bay, where Mitch spends the weekends with his mother Lydia and younger sister Cathy. Soon after her arrival, however, the birds in the area begin to act strangely. A seagull attacks Melanie as she is crossing the bay in a small boat, and then, Lydia finds her neighbor dead, obviously the victim of a bird attack. Soon, birds in the hundreds and thousands are attacking anyone they find out of doors. There is no explanation as to why this might be happening, and as the birds continue their vicious attacks, survival becomes the priority.
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Totally engrossed in his project to bring the dead back to life, Dr. Randolph fails to notice his wife Elaine’s interest in Randolph’s young lab partner, Dr. Cochran. Ancient housekeeper Maria doesn’t, however, and will do anything, including using her voodoo powers, to see to it that Elaine is happy.
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Kevin is an odd young man whose behaviour is sometimes dangerous. He lives with Jean-Claude on a remote farm in the midst of beautiful natural surroundings. The two men live together in disturbing silence. When Michèle meets Jean-Claude, she sees him as a casual lover. But when Kévin appears, Michèle sees this as an opportunity to give meaning to her own life…
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In World War I, British-officer Michael Andrews is captured by a band of Kurdish raiders on the Eastern Front, and is rescued by a man calling himself John Stevenson, although he refuses to tell his name to Andrews. The two men form a strange friendship, and help save an entire Kurdish village from a massacre and also avert a surprise attack on the British army-unit stationed there. Andrews suffers a wounded leg and is sent to the British military-hospital in Cairo. He falls in love with a nurse, Rosemary Haydon, and she with him, but she is married although she has not seen nor heard from her husband in over three years. It is at this point that the man who saved Andrews’ life turns up to claim his wife, who is Rosemary. The latter bids adieu to Andrews who does not know that the man he considers his best friend is also the husband of the woman he loves. But, by pure coincidence and chance, both Andrews and Rosemary’s husband come face-to-face again in a remote garrison that is under…
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