William Jacobs Movies

This movie is an early horror film classic and certainly one that a well-rounded horror movie aficionado should not miss. An invalid concert pianist dies, leaving a will that does not include his personal secretary Hilary Cummins (Peter Lorre) as a beneficiary. Furious, the left-out yes-man cuts off a hand from the corpse and plots revenge. Unfortunately for Hilary, the hand inherits a life of its own and relentlessly stalks the wild-eyed Lorre as he flees in vain. Special effects keep the audience jumping as they dread the next appearance of this gruesome walking hand. The film is directed by Robert Florey, who also directed Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). ~ All Movie Guide

This little-known Warner Bros. melodrama reteams Hotel Berlin co-stars Helmut Dantine and Andrea King. He is cast as Dr. Eric Ryder, a seemingly respectable medico, while she plays Ryder's impressionable young bride Brook. Despite significant evidence that Ryder isn't all that he seems to be, his wife continues to believe in and worship him. Only when it's nearly too late does she realize that Ryder is not only a phony, but a murderer to boot. The tension is heightened by the fact that Ryder's young son (Larry Geiger) from an earlier marriage is being methodically starved to death by his deranged father. Shadow of a Woman was based on a novel by Virginia Perdue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed some 18 months before its release, Conflict is one of two melodramas in which Humphrey Bogart self-consciously portrayed a wife murderer (the other was The Two Mrs. Carrolls). Bogie plays unhappily married Richard Mason, who concocts a meticulous scheme to kill his shrewish wife, Kathryn (Rose Hobart), so that he'll be free to marry her sister, Evelyn (Alexis Smith). Alas, Mason inadvertently tips his hand to family friend Dr. Mark Hamilton (Sydney Greenstreet). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, an amoral, manipulative womanizer gets his comeuppance. The story begins as the handsome cad is witnessed quickly leaving a hotel room in the East. He has just stolen money, and a wedding band from a dead woman. He is next seen in L.A. living under an alias. There, he begins victimizing two naive sisters and uses them to substantially increase his wealth. Eventually, the two figure out the man's evil game, but there is little they can do to thwart him. Meanwhile, the gigolo is being stalked by the husband of the woman he robbed in the film's beginning. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this mystery, a detective and his secretary go on vacation and end up solving a murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Its wartime setting notwithstanding, the fast-paced Warner Bros. B-picture Adventures in Iraq is a remake of the 1930 George Arliss vehicle The Green Goddess, with much of the original dialogue intact. Forced to making a landing in the Syrian desert, pilot Doug Everett (Warren Douglas) and his passengers George and Tess Torrence (John Loder, Ruth Ford), find themselves the unwilling guests of Sheik Ahmid Bel Nor (Paul Cavanagh, in the George Arliss role). The civilized but deadly Sheik intends to hold the threesome as hostages to prevent the execution of his three Nazi-spy brothers by the British. After several desperate escape attempts, the trio is prepared for human sacrifice by the ruthless Shiek. The ending is substantially the same as in The Green Goddess. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Action specialist B. Reeves Eason socked Truck Busters through its breathless 58 minutes. Richard Travis plays independent trucker Casey Dorgan, who organizes his fellow drivers against the crooked machinations of crooked trucking executive Bonelli (Don Costello). Things get personal when Casey's brother Jimmy (Charles Lang) is killed in a Bonelli-engineered "accident." Standing helplessly on the sidelines is heroine Eadie Watkins, played by Virginia Christine, later to gain nationwide fame as "Mrs. Olsen" in the Folger's Coffee commercials of the 1960s and 1970s. Truck Busters is a not-too-heavily disguised remake of the 1932 James Cagney-Loretta Young vehicle Taxi. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Everybody seems to have had a good time making the overripe melodrama The Hidden Hand, especially cadaverous Milton Parsons as insane-asylum escapee John Channing. In her efforts to protect her brother from the authorities, John's sister Lorinda (Cecil Cunningham) opens the door for a series of grisly murders. Hero Peter Thorne (Craig Stevens) and heroine Mary Winfield (Elizabeth Fraser) try to stop John before he overracts-er, kills-again. Absolutely impossible to take seriously, The Hidden Hand is nonetheless worth a glance, if for no other reason than to see perennial bit player Parsons in a juicy leading role. The film was based on Invitation to a Murder, a play by Rufus King. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The direction of Warner Bros.' Lady Gangster is credited to one "Florian Roberts," who on closer examination turns out to be veteran helmsman Robert Florey, working pseudonymously. Faye Emerson plays the title character, aspiring actress Dot Burton, whose chance association with a gang of bank robbers leads inexorably to a life of crime. She eventually ends up in prison, where she participates in a break-out. Her regeneration comes about when she rescues Kenneth Phillips (Frank Wilcox), the only man who has ever shown her any kindness, from being rubbed out by the mob. The supporting cast includes Julie Bishop (who only a year earlier had been billing herself as Jacqueline Wells), and Jackie "C." Gleason, wasted in the role of a rotund henchman. Lady Gangter bears some traces of the 1932 Warner Bros. drama The Life of Vergie Winters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A real four-hanky picture, Always in My Heart was loosely adapted from the stage play by Dorothy Bennett and Irving White. Walter Huston is a tower of strength as MacKenzie Scott, a brilliant musician falsely convicted of murder and sentenced to Life. While Scott languishes in prison, his long-suffering ex-wife Marjorie (Kay Francis) raises their two children to adulthood. Out of respect for Scott, whom she still loves, Marjorie never reveals to the kids that their father is in jail, insisting instead that Scott has long since died. Enter Philip Ames (Sidney Blackmer), who falls in love with Marjorie and lavish expensive gifts on the children. It must needs be that Scott is proven innocent and pardoned, whereupon he journeys home to visit his grown daughter Victoria (Gloria Warren), now a promising singer. At first hesitant to reveal his identity, Scott is finally urged to do so by Marjorie, who has never really given up hope that her family will one day be reunited. In the midst of all these soap-operaish intrigues, some welcome comedy relief is provided by Borrah Minevitch and his Harmonica Rascals. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This thriller, set aboard a transatlantic ship heading for America during WW II, chronicles the endeavors of a cagey reporter looking for the notorious international criminal, the Black Parrot. The reporter begins his search after a major theft occurs during a bogus submarine alert. Before the intrepid journalist captures his quarry, the evil Parrot commits two murders, and presents many confusing false clues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The brazen audaciousness with which Bryan Foy's B-picture unit at Warner Bros. remade the studio's old properties was seldom more pronounced than in 1941's Here Comes Happiness, a thinly disguised reworking of 1934's Happiness Ahead! The original starred Dick Powell and Josephine Hutchinson; the remake casts Edward Norris as ambitious sandhog Chet Madden and Mildred Coles as poor little rich girl Jessica Vance. Tired of having her every move dictated by her wealthy mother (Marjorie Gateson), Jessica rebels altogether when mama personally selects the girl's future husband. Our heroine escapes to the tenements, assumes a phony name, and falls in love with Chet, who has grandiose plans about his own future. Secretly financing Chet's pet projects, Jessica loses him when he finds out her true identity and disdainfully gives back her money. It's up to Jessica's foxy papa (Russell Hicks), who admires Chet's inborn business acumen, to bring the lovers back together. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Shadows on the Stairs is a slimmed-down adaptation of Frank Vosper's stage play Murder on the 2nd Floor. There's dirty work afoot at the London boarding house managed by Mr. and Mrs. Armitage (Miles Mander, Frieda Inescourt): several mysterious murders have occured, and everyone is under suspicion. One of the tenants is Mr. Bromilow (Bruce Lester), who weaves in and out of the proceedings with the all-knowing air of one who's already figured out the solution to the murders. Indeed, Bromilow has done just that, as demonstrated by a twist ending that would have done Alfred Hitchcock or Rod Serling proud. Otherwise, Shadows on the Stairs is standard stuff, standardly produced. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide