Matinee Movies Channel

Matinee Movies Channel - Tormented 1960Plot SummeryOn an island community off of California, Tom Stewart is preparing to marry the woman he loves. His plans are threatened by his old girlfriend, Vi, who shows up secretly. During a confrontation at the top of the island's lighthouse, the railing breaks and Vi falls. Tom has a chance to save her but doesn't. Tom's relief at Vi's accident soon fades when her vengeful spirit begins showing up wherever he goes........

Matinee Movies Channel - Ellery Queen Master Detective 1940Plot Summeryhe mysteriously ill John Braun (Fred Niblo) makes a new will, leaving out his daughter Barbara (Marsha Hunt), over the protests of his wife (Ann Shoemaker). The trouble began when the daughter wanted to marry Mr. Braun's doctor, James Rogers (Michael Whalen). Mrs. Braun asks Inspector Queen to help find the long-missing Barbara. The inspector's son, Ellery (Ralph Bellamy), works on the case. He goes to a home frequently visited by Dr. Rogers where the bell is answered by Nikki Porter (Margaret Lindsay) who Ellery mistakes for Barbara and insists she return to the Braun home. Nikki does, to protect Barbara, and a short time later finds herself alone in a room outside Braun's bedroom. She finds him dead - his throat cut. No weapons are found and the door to the room where Nikki had been is locked, and she is suspected. Ellery hides Nikki in his apartment. Braun's body, sent for an autopsy, disappears and in its place is a life-sized statue of the dead man. Ellery finds the body in a closet, the police prepare to send it downtown but someone drives off with the ambulance. Ellery, with Nikki, visits Braun's bedroom that night and discovers that a pet raven flies in and out taking items.

Matinee Movies Channel - The Devil's Mask  1946From the  "I Love a Mystery" series.Detective Jack Packard and his sidekick Doc Young investigating the identity of a shrunken head that was discovered in a downed cargo plane. The head was one of four others discovered in the wreckage. It was notable as having belonged to a red-haired white man believed to be a missing explorer. The two sleuths are hired by the explorer's daughter who has them follow her mother and her father's associate. The detectives soon reveal that the murderer was a taxidermist on the expedition.

Matinee Movies Channel - The Desert Trail Starring John WayneWrongly accused of armed robbery, rodeo star John Scott and his friend flee town to hunt down their won suspects in Poker City. 1935

Matinee Movies Channel - The Adventures of Long John SilverLong John Silver is the proud captain of his own ship and his own crew. He and his buccaneer cruise around the Caribbean and often stay on the side of the English and fight the French and Spanish.

Matinee Movies Channel - THE DAY THE SKY EXPLODED  1958This movie is very good considering what a low budget it must have had. A combined Italian-French effort this film was the basis for Meteor, Deep Impact, and Armageddon many years later. The special effects are very good for the era. One of the most interesting aspects of the film is that it showed U.S.-Russian cooperation for peaceful means at the hight of the cold war, very different than most movies of the time. The other similar movie of the 1950's about a collision with Earth is When Worlds Collide. However even though When Worlds Collide is in color this is the better and more realistic of the two films. Also there is less damage to the Earth in this movie than in Meteor, Deep Impact, and especially When Worlds Collide where the earth gets completely destroyed. It is interesting to see primitive computers and airplanes of the time. If you like Deep Impact and Armageddon you need to see this film that those two movies were based on.Comments Written by Craig Gerard from North Little Rock, AR USA

Matinee Movies Channel - Space Patrol presents  The Mystery of Ancient EgyptThe stories followed the adventures of Commander Buzz Corey (Ed Kemmer) of the United Planets Space Patrol and his young sidekick Cadet Happy (Lyn Osborn) â yes, Cadet Happy â as they faced nefarious villians with diabolical schemes. Not surprisingly for the time, some of these villians had Russian- or German-sounding accents. Cmdr. Corey and his allies were aided by such nifty gadgets as "miniature space-o-phones" and "atomolights." Episodes had titles like "Revolt of the Space Rats" and "The Menace of Planet X".

Matinee Movies Channel - This melodrama chronicles the enduring friendship between four boys in New York's Hell's Kitchen. As boys, the made a pact that they would meet annually to renew their friendship. Trouble ensues when one of the boys accidently sets fire to a building. Another boy took the blame. He went to reform school. Years pass before he is reunited with his pals. Now the man is a professional gambler and nightclub owner. He sees two of his friends, who have become cops, when they come into his club to investigate a murder. As they look into the death, one of the cops is killed. The fourth friend, now a priest, makes sure that justice prevails. Contributed by: ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Matinee Movies Channel - Fatal Hour 1940

Matinee Movies Channel - Peter Lorre makes his fifth appearance as J. P. Marquand's polite but deadly Japanese sleuth Mr. Moto. This time Moto is called in by Scotland Yard to thwart a vicious gang of international assassins. To infiltrate the gang, Moto poses as a Devil's Island inmate and escapes with one of the killers. The climax takes place at the British Museum, where the mysterious leader of the assassins (the least likely suspect, of course) overplays his hand. The gimmick of having Mr. Moto make his first appearance as an apparent villain works only when the "Moto" films aren't seen as a group. On its own merits, however, Mysterious Mr. Moto is one of the best of the series.

Matinee Movies Channel - The Alfred Hitchcock Hour - Final EscapeBroadcast on 21/Feb/1964 Convicted bank robber John Perry is sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in a state prison lumber camp. Determined to get out, he befriends an alcoholic inmate named Doc. Doc is in charge of the prison infirmary as well as burial of the dead. Doc makes an offer to John: if John will finance an operation for Doc's granddaughter, he will get him out of prison. Doc's plan is to hide John inside the coffin of the next inmate who dies. The coffin will then be buried and dug up after the gravediggers and guards leave. John will then make his escape. All goes according to plan, until Doc fails to dig John up. John is horrified to learn why after the shroud slips off the face of the corpse sharing the coffin with him: Doc died of a heart attack the night before.

Matinee Movies Channel - Hogan's Heroes was a sitcom which ran on CBS from 1965-1971 (168 episodes). The show took place at Stalag 13, a WW II POW camp located near the town of Hammelburg, run by the Luftwaffe for captured airmen. Although there was a real-life Stalag 13 near Hammelburg (formally known as Stalag XIII-C Hammelburg/Mainfranken), the one in Hoganâs Heroes was entirely fictional. The showâs premise was that the POWs were actually active war participants, using the camp as a base of operations for Allied espionage and sabotage against the Nazis. The âprisonersâ could leave and return almost at will via a secret network of tunnels and had radio contact with Allied command. They were aided by the incompetence of the camp commandant Colonel Klink and his aide Sergeant Schultz; Hogan would routinely manipulate the incompetent Klink and get Schultz to look the other way while his men conducted secret operations. Klink and Schultz were in constant terror of being transferred to the Russian Front, and Hogan took pains to keep the hapless German duo firmly in place.

Matinee Movies Channel - CAST:Johnny Cash, Donald Woods, Pamela Mason, Vic Tayback, Ron Howard This is an odd couple indeed, but there's nothing to laugh at here. Fred hires Johnny to hold up a bank, and the catch is they take the vice president's wife which Johnny does, and Fred does the hold-up. There's one catch though, and that's the vice-president doesn't care as he's about ready to run off with his mistress. Cash not only does a impressive acting job, but he actually shows off his guitar abilities here, and he's actually good. Unfortunately, this had some moments that were overdone like where the woman Priscilla keeps calling the vice-president's house to speak to his wife, and then there was little Ronnie Howard as thier little boy who makes it home just in time bringing the police with him. I found the ending too predictable not like in "Jeopardy" where Barbara Stanwyck convinces an bank robber to help her husband as he's caught under a fishing pier, and when he frees her husband she lets him escape. I feel the soundtrack was good, Cash was good, and so was Tayback, but the storyline was overdone by about 15 minutes.REVIEW BY: Daniel Hayes "D.R. Hayes" (Clermont, FL.)

Matinee Movies Channel - Walter Brennan Richard CrennaKathleen NolanTriple Oscar winner Walter Brennan is Amos, head of a West Virginia clan on a California ranch, in a popular sitcom that paved the way for such rural hits as `The Beverly Hillbillies' and `The Andy Griffith Show.' Amos is the granddad who `roars like a lion but [is] gentle as a lamb,' sharing his wisdom with kin like grandson Luke and daughter-in-law Kate, and the farmhand Pepino. The Real Mccoys started on 1957. The show focuses on the lives of the mountain family in West Virginia. The McCoys transfered to California where they worke as a dirt farmers. The members of the family consists of grandpa Amos McCoy, grandson Luke, Luke's new bride Kate, his sister Hassie, and an 11-year-old brother Little Luke. The reason why two brothers are both named Luke because their parents got so excited over the birth of the younger boy that they have forgotten about their elder son. Before the show ended, Nolan decided to leave the show due to contract disagreement. As a result, the show decided to drop Nolan's character for the final season. Luke became a widower and some of the stories focuses on his grandfather looking for a suitable wife for Luke.

Matinee Movies Channel - Joe E. Ross ... Officer Gunther Toody  Fred Gwynne ... Officer Francis MuldoonThe TV show's police cars used on location shots were actually bright red but on black and white film would appear dark, similar to that of real NYPD RMP units of that era (black and green with a white roof and trunk). Hence filmmakers achieved a realistic appearance without alarming bystanders during production.Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis would later appear together again in The Munsters (1964-1966). Much of the script was written by Nat Hiken. Joe E. Ross and Beatrice Pons were teamed once more as husband and wife (Ross played the part of the witless Rupert Ritzik in Bilko, Pons his wife Emma). Silvia Schnauser (Charlotte Rae) also appeared in Sergeant Bilko as "The Twitch", and Gwynne made an appearance as a prodigious eater.

Matinee Movies Channel - BEAT THE DEVIL (1953)The script, which was written on a day-to-day basis as the film was being shot, concerns the adventures of a motley crew of swindlers and ne'er-do-wells trying to lay claim to land rich in uranium deposits in Kenya as they wait in a small Italian port or travel aboardan ill-fated tramp steamer en route to Mombasa. The all-star cast includes Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley (playing the role that Sydney Greenstreet would have played had he still been acting), Peter Lorre and Bernard Lee, (who was to gain widespread recognition with his appearances as "M" in the James Bond movies.) This Huston opus does not easily fit into the standard set of film categories; it has variously been classified as a "thriller," a "comedy," a "drama," a "crime" and a "romance" movie. It is above all else a parody of the Film Noir style that Huston himself had pioneered and as such has developed cult status in the ensuing years.