Possessed by the Night

A horror writer buys an odd looking mutant embryo creature, pickled in a jar, from a shop in Chinatown, hoping it will be a creative inspiration for his work. Instead, the odd mutation provokes a rage of violence and lust to envelop the suburban villa where the writer lives with his wife and sexy secretary.

The Stendhal Syndrome or My Dinner with Turhan Bey

Joan Crawford's close-up in Humoresque. Michelangelo's David and Boticelli's "Birth of Venus". Stendhal was overwhelmed by the cultural overstimulation in Florence, which Graziella Magherini described scientifically in 1979 as Stendhal syndrome. Mark Rappaport describes his fascination for the Austrian actor Turhan Bey, who made a career in exotic roles in Hollywood in the 1940s. A very personal essay about the effect of close-ups, the canvas idols of the dream factory and the role of their admirers and fans.

Frisco Sal

Sal comes to the Barbary Coast from New England to find out who murdered her brother. She gets a job signing in Dude's saloon, falls in love with Dude, then wonders if he might be involved in the murder.

Night in Paradise

Aesop of fable fame poses as an old man and woos away a princess who wants a king for his gold.

Twenty Years After

This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.

Destination Unknown

Foreign spies and police pursue an attractive Dutch spy throughout Peking.

Bowery to Broadway

Two Bowery vaudevillians find success in producing shows on Broadway, but when one of them suddenly departs to work for a beautiful woman, a feud erupts.

The Adventures of Smilin' Jack

A movie serial in 12 chapters: The famous comic strip character is on a mission to protect a secret tunnel passage between China and India.

Danger in the Pacific

Scientist-explorer David Lynd leaves wealthy bride-to-be June Claymore at the altar to join photographer Andy Parker and British secret service agent Leo Marzeli in search of rare minerals. They soon run afoul of crooked trader Tagani, who's been busily stockpiling weapons in the hills on behalf of his Nazi partners.

Unseen Enemy

The Unseen Enemy in this wartime meller is Nick (Leo Carrillo), the outwardly effusive manager of a San Francisco waterfront café. To make enough money to ensure his daughter Gen's (Irene Hervey) entree into society, Nick sells his services to a gang of foreign spies, who then use Nick's establishment as a rendezvous point. The plan is to covertly send out a Japanese vessel for the purpose of raiding and destroying American merchant ships. The spies' secret code is hidden in the lyrics of a song called "Lydia", which the unwitting Gen perfor...

Out of the Blue

Set in an apartment building whose occupants include Arthur Earthleigh, a meek and mild type married to the beautiful-but-domineering Mae; a Bohemian artist, David Galleo and his always-there model, Deborah Tyler; and Olive Jensen, a Greenwich Village type who is always slightly-but-continuously inebriated, and whose motto is "love and let love." She calls on George while his wife is out, and when she passes out during his attempts to get her out before his wife returns, he thinks she is dead and deposits her on Galleo's terrace. Galleo take...

Raiders of the Desert

Two American leave a ship where they had stowed away, in a Middle Eastern port and wind up in the fighting in a brutal civil war

Adventures of Casanova

Casanova, a young patriot in 18th-century Sicily, upon learning that his father and sister have been murdered, returns to Palermo and engages in guerilla tactics against the forces of the Governor. Lady Bianca, the Governor's daughter, is in love with one of the patriots, Lorenzo, and desires to escape from the palace. Her lady-in-waiting, Zanetta, enlists the aid of Casanova and he rescues them and takes them to the partisan's camp. The rebels are victorious. Lady Bianca makes plans to marry Lorenzo, and Casanova and Zanetta have similar pl...