Brookes Turner Movies

In this melodrama, a fisherman begins studying to be a doctor. Although he isn't finished with medical school, he begins treating his landlady's daughter who is believed to have a terminal illness. He seems to cure her, and the case draws a lot of attention, some of it negative because he was unlicensed when he treated her. He still does not have a degree when he marries the daughter and begins practicing osteopathy. He soon finds success and happiness until he begins having an affair. Later he jilts his mistress and she kills herself. During the autopsy he is appalled to learn that it was actually his misdiagnosis of her illness and the resulting medical treatment that caused her to die. The distraught osteopath then takes off and does not return until his wife, whose disease has come back, begs him to help her once again. He succeeds and their happiness resumes. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The title character in Meet Sexton Blake was created in 1893 as a way of cashing in on the immense popularity of Sherlock Holmes. This 1944 film opens with a bizarre and intriguing murder. Late one night along the London waterfront, a man is desperately tugging at the hand of another man -- a corpse, the audience soon discovers. There clearly is something very important about the dead man's hand, as the living man goes so far as to take out a saw and start removing it. Soon after achieving his prize, he falls from a bridge to his own death. The body is hauled aboard a passing ship, and when they search the body they discover the grisly severed hand. Blake is soon on the scene, using his keen powers of detection to determine that the hand belonged to a photographer from another country. Blake retires to his digs, but it's not long before a new client appears at his door. By coincidence, this man -- an arms manufacturer -- wants Blake to investigate the death of a friend, who just happens to have been a foreign photographer. Blake and his assistant Tinker delve into the case, which leads them to a mysterious villain named Slant Eyes and an espionage plot involving a new alloy for use in airplanes that is of enormous value to both sides in the war. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

Comic actors Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen, members in good standing of Britain's "The Crazy Gang", head the cast of the wartime mirthspinner We'll Smile Again. The film is set at a movie studio, where production of an Arabian Nights epic is constantly interrupted by the fumbling and bumbling of Bob Parker (Flanagan) and Gordon Maxwell (Allen). The two screw-ups redeem themselves by capturing a Nazi spy ring, headed by film star Gina Cavendish (Phyllis Stanley) and Teutonic director Steiner (Meinhardt Maur). Bumptuous radio comedian Horace Kenny contributes to the zaniness as a self-important studio makeup man. The producers engagingly make fun of the film's ultra-low budget with the opening disclaimer "The Anglo-American Film Corporation announces proudly that no expense has been spared to save money on this production." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide