Monogram Pictures

Wealthy, universally disliked Silas Wayne gathers his greedy relatives and mistreated servants to read them his will, and is stabbed to death in front of a room full of witnesses who all claim to have seen nothing. Detective Sergeant Mitchell (Regis Toomey) and wisecracking reporter "Nosey" Toodles (June Clyde) sort through a house full of suspects — a shrouded figure stalking the halls, a phony diamond in the safe, and a second body before the night is out. Lucille La Verne steals scenes as the dead man's housekeeper. Released by Monogram in November 1932 and reissued under the title The Wayne Murder Case, it is a brisk pre-Code old-dark-house mystery. The film is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Drama

A wartime espionage quickie from Monogram, rushed into theaters three months after Pearl Harbor. Bela Lugosi plays Dr. Melcher, a plastic surgeon who has spent years transforming six agents of Japan's Black Dragon Society into doubles of prominent American industrialists — a fifth column planted to sabotage the US war effort. When the infiltrators start turning up dead with ceremonial daggers in their chests, a doctor and a detective try to untangle the conspiracy. Clayton Moore, a few years away from the Lone Ranger, plays a young FBI man. Cheap even by poverty-row standards, but a vivid snapshot of wartime paranoia. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Thriller · Mystery · War

A respected university professor by day secretly runs a criminal ring out of a Bowery soup kitchen by night, disposing of disloyal henchmen by burying them in the cellar, where a junkie doctor keeps them in a zombie-like trance. Bela Lugosi stars in this Monogram quickie. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Horror · Crime

Bowery Blitzkrieg is a 1941 East Side Kids comedy-drama directed by Wallace Fox for Monogram Pictures. Policeman Tom Brady (Warren Hull) spots promising young boxer Danny Breslin (Bobby Jordan) and steers him toward an amateur boxing tournament, hoping to keep him off the streets. But Danny is torn between the ring and easy money, and when a gangster pressures him to throw the fight, Muggs (Leo Gorcey), Glimpy (Huntz Hall), and the rest of the Kids rally around him. The first East Side Kids entry to feature Keye Luke as Clancy, the film's title trades on the wartime headlines of its day. It entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Crime

William Cagney — James's younger brother, in his only starring role — plays Bob Mason, a carefree socialite who poses as a detective to impress a girl and promptly gets himself suspected of a real murder. With the police on one side and the actual killer on the other, Bob has to solve the case to clear his own name, helped along by Marion Burns as the girl he is trying to win. A poverty-row quickie from Monogram directed by silent-comedy veteran Vin Moore, it coasts on Cagney's easy charm and a plot that never sits still for its sixty-odd minutes. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Mystery

A protection racket run by mobster "Big Bill" Morgan moves in on a small city's shopkeepers, and the only people standing up to it are a crusading district attorney and a gutsy girl reporter (Anne Nagel). Robert Kent plays the detective who infiltrates the gang. A Monogram B-crime picture directed by Lambert Hillyer, who made hundreds of programmers and westerns for the Poverty Row studios. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

Mickey Rooney plays Shockey Carter, a small-town Indiana schoolboy whose quick temper and ragged clothes hide the real problem: a widowed, shell-shocked father (Frank Shields) who's lost the will to work. When the town's new schoolteacher takes an interest in the boy, local busybodies use it as an excuse to run the family out of town. A Monogram drama directed by William Nigh that gave the teenage Rooney one of his better pre-Hardy dramatic roles. The film is in the public domain.

Drama

A Monogram aviation melodrama built around the era's fascination with record-breaking balloon ascents. Army pilots Tom "Soapy" Cooper (William Cagney, James's brother) and Richard "Woody" Wood (Edward J. Nugent) are inseparable in the air but rivals on the ground, both courting Evelyn Worthington (June Collyer), daughter of their commanding officer. When a high-altitude balloon mission goes wrong, the feud must give way to survival miles above the earth. Typical of Monogram's brisk B-pictures, it pads its stock footage with pre-Code barracks banter and a genuinely tense stratospheric climax. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Adventure · Drama · Romance

A 1940 American mystery film directed by Howard Bretherton and released by Monogram Pictures. The film stars John 'Dusty' King as Val Lennon and Marjorie Reynolds as Joan Marshall, who find themselves aboard the Midnight Limited, a train where a mysterious crime unfolds. George Cleveland plays Professor Van Dillon. The film is a classic Poverty Row mystery, typical of Monogram's low-budget output of the era. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Action

The East Side Kids — Muggs (Leo Gorcey), Glimpy (Huntz Hall), and the gang — rescue millionaire John Cortland from a mugging, and his gratitude lands them in a world of swank they were never built for. The good turn sours when the boys discover a friend has been recruited by the crooks behind a string of robberies, and Muggs has to choose between loyalty and doing right. One of the tighter entries in Monogram's long-running East Side Kids series, with the usual mix of slapstick, Bowery slang, and last-reel fisticuffs under series regular Wallace Fox. Sam Katzman produced, as he did for most of the gang's pictures. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Comedy · Crime

The third entry in Monogram's Mr. Wong series, with Boris Karloff in the unlikely role of the gentlemanly Chinese detective James Lee Wong. A Chinese princess visiting San Francisco to buy warplanes for her country is murdered in Wong's own home, and the trail winds through Chinatown tongs, shady ship brokers, and a counterfeiting ring. Marjorie Reynolds co-stars as wisecracking reporter Bobbie Logan, with Grant Withers as the eternally exasperated Captain Street. Karloff's quiet, courtly Wong remains one of the odder delights of the Poverty Row detective series. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Crime

A 1934 American Pre-Code mystery film directed by William Nigh and based on an Edgar Wallace story. Captain Holling (Noah Beery) is relieved of command of his ship after suffering a nervous breakdown. His replacement takes over the liner just as it is about to be used for an experiment in remote control. Professor Grimson has devised a system for controlling the ship from a land-based laboratory, but as Grimson demonstrates the system, a rival group is listening in, hoping to use the device for its own purposes. The film was entered as a feature attraction at the 1934 International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art in Venice, the forerunner of the Venice Film Festival. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

ZaSu Pitts gets a rare leading role as Emma Bates, a fluttery small-town spinster who comes to the big city to see a prizefight and is promptly mistaken for a notorious gun moll. The mix-up pulls her into the boxing racket, a kidnapping, and a couple of gangland murders, and Emma turns out to be considerably sharper than the mobsters around her. Jean Yarbrough directs for Monogram, with Roger Pryor as a fast-talking reporter and Warren Hymer doing his patented dumb-mug routine. A lightweight but likeable entry in the era's run of little-old-lady comedies. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Crime

A Monogram crime programmer built on a genuinely nasty twist. Warren Hull plays John Randolph, an idealistic newspaper editor crusading against a crime syndicate — not knowing that the gang's secret boss is his own father, long believed dead. When a hit man with a conscience gets involved and a society engagement party turns into a shootout, the crusade becomes very personal. Howard Bretherton, one of poverty row's fastest and most reliable directors, keeps it moving through a tight hour. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Drama

Boris Karloff plays Dr. Bernard Adrian, a gentle small-town physician still grieving his wife and daughter's deaths from polio, now experimenting with spinal fluid to cure a paralyzed young woman. When a vicious circus ape escapes and is shot, Adrian sees a grim shortcut to the human material he needs — and the killings that follow are blamed on the ape itself. A Monogram horror cheapie that gives Karloff an unusually sympathetic mad scientist. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Mystery

Bela Lugosi at his most committedly absurd: Dr. James Brewster, a scientist whose experiments with ape glands have turned him into a stooped, shaggy ape-man who must harvest human spinal fluid to stay alive. Wallace Ford and Louise Currie play the reporters who stumble onto the story, and Henry Hall wanders through as the creepiest character in the picture — a mysterious man who keeps appearing to comment on events. Shot in a week for Monogram under William Beaudine, it is cheap even by poverty-row standards, but Lugosi plays the degradation with real conviction, and the final twist is genuinely strange. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Horror · Sci-Fi

A mysterious Chinese princess is murdered in Charlie Chan's own home, leaving only a large ring and the dying message "Capt K" as clues. Chan traces the ring to a visiting princess and untangles a plot involving stolen fighter planes and a cargo ship bound for China. The Chinese Ring was Roland Winters' first outing as Chan after taking over the role at Monogram, with Mantan Moreland and Victor Sen Yung back as Birmingham Brown and Tommy Chan. Directed by the prolific William Beaudine, the film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime

Bela Lugosi plays the title role in this Monogram poverty-row thriller, a Chinatown crime lord hunting down the twelve legendary coins of Confucius, which are said to grant their possessor control of a Chinese province. Bodies start turning up across the district as Wong's men retrieve the coins one by one, and wisecracking reporter Jason Barton, played by Wallace Ford, follows the trail into Wong's secret headquarters. Lugosi is clearly enjoying himself in a dual role that lets him be both the suave mastermind and his own humble shopkeeper cover. Directed by William Nigh, a Monogram regular who also helmed several of the studio's Mr. Wong detective films. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

One of the six Charlie Chan pictures Sidney Toler made for Monogram after the series left Fox. When murders pile up around a radio station that is secretly tied to a wartime espionage ring, Chan works the case while his son Tommy and chauffeur Birmingham Brown stumble through the clues beside him. The film is best remembered for the extended comedy routine between Mantan Moreland and Ben Carter, whose rhyming, never-finished conversations became a signature of the Monogram Chans. Directed by series veteran Phil Rosen, it is a brisk poverty-row mystery that keeps the plot moving and the banter constant. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A string of murders has witnesses giving identical descriptions of a man seen leaving each scene — Jerome Breen, a wealthy philanthropist who has been deaf and mute since birth and could not possibly have been overheard. Lionel Atwill plays Breen in a Monogram old-dark-house mystery directed by Phil Rosen, with Sheila Terry as the reporter convinced there is more to the suspect than his affliction suggests, and Paul Hurst as the detective working the case. The solution, when it comes, is a genuinely nasty piece of pre-Code plotting. Made the same year Atwill headlined Mystery of the Wax Museum, it shows why he was the era's go-to man for quiet menace. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

The final Charlie Chan film starring Sidney Toler, directed by Howard Bretherton for Monogram Pictures. When two members of a showgirl troupe vacationing at a Malibu Beach resort are garroted, detective Charlie Chan is called in to solve the case, assisted by his Number Two Son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) and faithful chauffeur Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland). Toler was stricken with cancer during filming and was so physically weak he could hardly walk or deliver his lines; he died on February 12, 1947. The film entered the public domain due to the omission of a valid copyright notice on original prints.

Mystery · Crime

A Monogram crime picture directed by Howard Bretherton. Russell Gleason plays a railway postal clerk whose mail routes keep turning up phony sweepstakes tickets, and when the service can't crack the counterfeiting ring from the outside he goes in undercover — straight into a gang that doesn't hesitate to kill. Shirley Deane plays the reporter who both helps and nearly exposes him, and J.M. Kerrigan co-stars. Brisk poverty-row melodrama with a postal-inspector hook that was timely in an era when mail-fraud rackets were front-page news. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Drama

A federal marshal working undercover as a drifter arrives in a town being terrorized by a gang led by a respectable citizen who is secretly hoarding gold and driving out the ranchers. John Wayne stars in one of his early Lone Star westerns. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western

A respected university professor by day secretly runs a criminal ring out of a Bowery soup kitchen by night, disposing of disloyal henchmen by burying them in the cellar, where a junkie doctor keeps them in a zombie-like trance. Bela Lugosi stars in this Monogram quickie. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Horror · Crime

Bowery Blitzkrieg is a 1941 East Side Kids comedy-drama directed by Wallace Fox for Monogram Pictures. Policeman Tom Brady (Warren Hull) spots promising young boxer Danny Breslin (Bobby Jordan) and steers him toward an amateur boxing tournament, hoping to keep him off the streets. But Danny is torn between the ring and easy money, and when a gangster pressures him to throw the fight, Muggs (Leo Gorcey), Glimpy (Huntz Hall), and the rest of the Kids rally around him. The first East Side Kids entry to feature Keye Luke as Clancy, the film's title trades on the wartime headlines of its day. It entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy · Crime

The second East Side Kids film and the first to star Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, and Ernest Morrison. Directed by Joseph H. Lewis and produced by Sam Katzman for Monogram Pictures, the film follows a group of street kids who escape the city heat for a summer camp in the Adirondacks. When their car breaks down, they take shelter in the home of Judge Malcolm Parker, who is under indictment for bribery and has been threatened by racketeers. After the Judge is found strangled and his niece kidnapped, the boys must solve the murder themselves, navigating secret passages and unmasking the real killer. The film is also known by the alternative title The Ghost Creeps. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Mystery · Thriller

Evelyn Venable plays the wife of a small-time crook who takes the fall for a payroll robbery and goes on the run, hiding out as a cook on a truck farm where Craig Reynolds's earnest farmer slowly falls for her — while her husband's gang closes in. A Crescent Pictures production released through Monogram, it is a compact poverty-row crime melodrama built on the era's favorite engine: a decent woman on the wrong side of the law through no fault of her own. Director William Nigh keeps it moving at the pace Monogram audiences expected. It entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Crime · Drama

A protection racket run by mobster "Big Bill" Morgan moves in on a small city's shopkeepers, and the only people standing up to it are a crusading district attorney and a gutsy girl reporter (Anne Nagel). Robert Kent plays the detective who infiltrates the gang. A Monogram B-crime picture directed by Lambert Hillyer, who made hundreds of programmers and westerns for the Poverty Row studios. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

The East Side Kids return in a sequel of sorts to Spooks Run Wild. When one of their own gets married, the gang tries to fix up a bargain suburban house for the newlyweds but accidentally breaks into the "haunted" house next door, where a mysterious man named Emil, played by Bela Lugosi, slips in and out of secret panels. The boys uncover a Nazi spy ring operating a printing press in the basement. Ava Gardner, on loan from MGM and not yet a major star, appears as the bride. William Beaudine directs with his usual no-nonsense pace. The film is more comedy than horror, with the gang's slapstick carrying most of the running time, and Lugosi used mostly for atmosphere. It entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Horror

Mickey Rooney plays Shockey Carter, a small-town Indiana schoolboy whose quick temper and ragged clothes hide the real problem: a widowed, shell-shocked father (Frank Shields) who's lost the will to work. When the town's new schoolteacher takes an interest in the boy, local busybodies use it as an excuse to run the family out of town. A Monogram drama directed by William Nigh that gave the teenage Rooney one of his better pre-Hardy dramatic roles. The film is in the public domain.

Drama

Bela Lugosi plays Dr. Charles Kessler, a grief-stricken widower whose wife is believed dead — but is actually alive, hidden away in the cellar by the gardener, driven mad by a car accident. When she wanders the grounds at night, the sight of her through the window sends Kessler into a trance that turns him into an unwitting killer, and his daughter Virginia's fiance takes the fall for the murders. The first of Lugosi's nine Monogram pictures, directed with unusual atmosphere by Joseph H. Lewis, who stages the trances with slow, eerie poise. Clarence Muse gives a dignified turn as the Kesslers' butler Evans. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Horror · Crime · Thriller

A pilot and his passengers crash-land on a Caribbean island while searching for a missing admiral and find a mansion occupied by a sinister doctor and his household, where voodoo is practiced and zombies roam. Mantan Moreland plays the pilot's valet, Jeff, and his reactions carry most of the film's comedy; he was a gifted comedian whose wide-eyed double takes were a staple of 1940s B-pictures, though the roles he was given were limited by the era's racism. The film was Monogram's answer to Paramount's Bob Hope hit The Ghost Breakers, and it earned an Academy Award nomination for its musical score, a rare distinction for a poverty-row horror comedy. It entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Comedy · Horror

A Monogram aviation melodrama built around the era's fascination with record-breaking balloon ascents. Army pilots Tom "Soapy" Cooper (William Cagney, James's brother) and Richard "Woody" Wood (Edward J. Nugent) are inseparable in the air but rivals on the ground, both courting Evelyn Worthington (June Collyer), daughter of their commanding officer. When a high-altitude balloon mission goes wrong, the feud must give way to survival miles above the earth. Typical of Monogram's brisk B-pictures, it pads its stock footage with pre-Code barracks banter and a genuinely tense stratospheric climax. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Adventure · Drama · Romance

A 1940 American mystery film directed by Howard Bretherton and released by Monogram Pictures. The film stars John 'Dusty' King as Val Lennon and Marjorie Reynolds as Joan Marshall, who find themselves aboard the Midnight Limited, a train where a mysterious crime unfolds. George Cleveland plays Professor Van Dillon. The film is a classic Poverty Row mystery, typical of Monogram's low-budget output of the era. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Action

The third entry in Monogram's Mr. Wong series, with Boris Karloff in the unlikely role of the gentlemanly Chinese detective James Lee Wong. A Chinese princess visiting San Francisco to buy warplanes for her country is murdered in Wong's own home, and the trail winds through Chinatown tongs, shady ship brokers, and a counterfeiting ring. Marjorie Reynolds co-stars as wisecracking reporter Bobbie Logan, with Grant Withers as the eternally exasperated Captain Street. Karloff's quiet, courtly Wong remains one of the odder delights of the Poverty Row detective series. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Crime

A 1934 American Pre-Code mystery film directed by William Nigh and based on an Edgar Wallace story. Captain Holling (Noah Beery) is relieved of command of his ship after suffering a nervous breakdown. His replacement takes over the liner just as it is about to be used for an experiment in remote control. Professor Grimson has devised a system for controlling the ship from a land-based laboratory, but as Grimson demonstrates the system, a rival group is listening in, hoping to use the device for its own purposes. The film was entered as a feature attraction at the 1934 International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art in Venice, the forerunner of the Venice Film Festival. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

The East Side Kids rescue Sylvia, a young girl fleeing her abusive stepfather Morley, and hide her in their clubhouse dressed as a boy. When Morley turns up dead — killed by racketeer McGaffey for a stolen stash of money — Danny is arrested for the murder after returning to the girl's apartment for her clothes. Muggs is then blackmailed into joining a warehouse robbery, leaving the kids to clear their friend's name and catch the real killer, with help from Rusty, a former East Side Kid home on leave from the Navy. The eleventh East Side Kids picture, directed by Wallace Fox for Monogram, and one of the series' more dramatic entries. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Crime · Drama

The earliest sound adaptation of Charles Dickens's novel, made on a shoestring by Poverty Row studio Monogram. Young Dickie Moore plays the workhouse orphan who falls in with Fagin's gang of boy pickpockets, with Irving Pichel as Fagin and William "Stage" Boyd as the brutal Bill Sikes. Stripped to the bare bones of the story by its tight budget, the film nevertheless preserves the novel's core scenes and was the only talking-picture Oliver Twist for more than a decade. The film is in the public domain.

Drama

A drifter rides into a town where everyone has been massacred and is promptly framed for the killings by the real culprit, a bandit hiding out in a secret lair. John Wayne stars in an early Lone Star western. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western

A government agent posing as a singing cowboy arrives in a valley where a land baron is monopolizing the water supply to force out the homesteaders. John Wayne's first Lone Star western and one of his rare singing-cowboy roles. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western

An innocent man escapes from prison and heads west to find the real killer, joining up with an outlaw gang to get close to his quarry. John Wayne stars in an early Lone Star western. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western

The East Side Kids earn money for baseball uniforms, but their plans collide with gangster Butch Brocalli when Muggs catches the eye of the ex-boxer's gang. Muggs lands in jail for refusing to inform on an old friend, while Danny's sister Ruth desperately needs money for an operation. Former East Side Kid Hank Salko, fresh out of prison, falls back in with the gang before deciding where his loyalties lie. Former light-heavyweight champion Maxie "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom plays Brocalli, and Gale Storm appears as Ruth. The tenth East Side Kids picture, directed by Wallace Fox for Monogram. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Crime · Drama

The East Side Kids, a gang of streetwise New York teenagers, are shipped off to a summer camp in the country and end up stranded in a town where a "monster killer" is said to be on the loose. After one of them is wounded, they take shelter at a hilltop mansion owned by a mysterious caped figure named Nardo, played by Bela Lugosi, and his dwarf assistant. The boys decide Nardo is a zombie master and tie him up. The film was made to pair Monogram's two biggest draws, Lugosi and the East Side Kids, and it leans into the comedy as much as the scares. Leo Gorcey's malapropism-heavy banter with Huntz Hall is the engine of the picture. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Horror

John Wayne plays Sheriff John Higgins, who resigns in disgrace after believing he has killed his own best friend in a shootout, and takes to the desert as a prospecting recluse. When his dead friend's sister Bess (Lucile Browne) arrives to run the ranch and is targeted by the real killer, Higgins is pulled back into the fight to clear his conscience. One of the sixteen Lone Star westerns Wayne made for Monogram in the mid-1930s under director Robert N. Bradbury, all shot fast and cheap around Lone Pine and all built around Wayne's still-forming screen persona — the easy drawl, the moral guilt, the horsemanship that would carry him to Stagecoach four years later. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Western

Boris Karloff plays Dr. Bernard Adrian, a gentle small-town physician still grieving his wife and daughter's deaths from polio, now experimenting with spinal fluid to cure a paralyzed young woman. When a vicious circus ape escapes and is shot, Adrian sees a grim shortcut to the human material he needs — and the killings that follow are blamed on the ape itself. A Monogram horror cheapie that gives Karloff an unusually sympathetic mad scientist. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Mystery

A mysterious Chinese princess is murdered in Charlie Chan's own home, leaving only a large ring and the dying message "Capt K" as clues. Chan traces the ring to a visiting princess and untangles a plot involving stolen fighter planes and a cargo ship bound for China. The Chinese Ring was Roland Winters' first outing as Chan after taking over the role at Monogram, with Mantan Moreland and Victor Sen Yung back as Birmingham Brown and Tommy Chan. Directed by the prolific William Beaudine, the film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime

Bela Lugosi plays Dr. Lorenz, a mad scientist who sends poisoned orchids to brides so they collapse at the altar, then steals their bodies to extract the fluids that keep his aging wife young. A journalist investigating the string of deaths tracks Lorenz to his country home, where she finds a household of coffins, secret passages, and a hunchbacked servant. The Corpse Vanishes is a brisk Monogram B-picture from the stretch of Lugosi's career when he was working the Poverty Row circuit. It is campy and cheap, but Lugosi plays it with complete conviction. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Mystery

A young easterner heads west to partner with an old family friend on his ranch, and the two strike gold, only to be targeted by a crooked assayer who wants the claim for himself. John Wayne stars with George Hayes in an early Lone Star western. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western

A drifting cowhand stumbles onto a racket in which a gang cripples rodeo riders to fix the betting, and sets out to bring them down. John Wayne stars in an early Lone Star western that also features him singing. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western

Bela Lugosi plays the title role in this Monogram poverty-row thriller, a Chinatown crime lord hunting down the twelve legendary coins of Confucius, which are said to grant their possessor control of a Chinese province. Bodies start turning up across the district as Wong's men retrieve the coins one by one, and wisecracking reporter Jason Barton, played by Wallace Ford, follows the trail into Wong's secret headquarters. Lugosi is clearly enjoying himself in a dual role that lets him be both the suave mastermind and his own humble shopkeeper cover. Directed by William Nigh, a Monogram regular who also helmed several of the studio's Mr. Wong detective films. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A radio-era whodunit from Monogram. Crooner Norman Wilder (Ralph Forbes) is the most popular voice on the air — but the voice isn't his: he has been secretly lip-syncing to a blacklisted singer, the "phantom" of the broadcast. When Wilder is shot dead mid-performance, detectives and rival singers pile into a case where everyone in the station had a motive and nobody is who they claim to be. Phil Rosen, one of Poverty Row's most prolific directors, keeps the mystery brisk. Its copyright was never renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Crime · Music

One of the six Charlie Chan pictures Sidney Toler made for Monogram after the series left Fox. When murders pile up around a radio station that is secretly tied to a wartime espionage ring, Chan works the case while his son Tommy and chauffeur Birmingham Brown stumble through the clues beside him. The film is best remembered for the extended comedy routine between Mantan Moreland and Ben Carter, whose rhyming, never-finished conversations became a signature of the Monogram Chans. Directed by series veteran Phil Rosen, it is a brisk poverty-row mystery that keeps the plot moving and the banter constant. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A U.S. marshal and his Native American sidekick hunt a mysterious outlaw known only as the Shadow, who has been terrorizing the frontier. John Wayne stars in an early Lone Star western. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western

The final Charlie Chan film starring Sidney Toler, directed by Howard Bretherton for Monogram Pictures. When two members of a showgirl troupe vacationing at a Malibu Beach resort are garroted, detective Charlie Chan is called in to solve the case, assisted by his Number Two Son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) and faithful chauffeur Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland). Toler was stricken with cancer during filming and was so physically weak he could hardly walk or deliver his lines; he died on February 12, 1947. The film entered the public domain due to the omission of a valid copyright notice on original prints.

Mystery · Crime

Dr. Marlowe, a mad scientist played by Bela Lugosi, uses voodoo and hypnosis to kidnap young women and transfer their life essence into the body of his dead wife, who has been in a trance for twenty-eight years. His assistants are a zombie-like coachman played by John Carradine and a gas station owner played by George Zucco who lures victims by pretending their cars have broken down. Shot in seven days by William Beaudine for Sam Katzman's Monogram unit, the film was not intended as a comedy, but its absurd plot and loose continuity have made it a favorite of bad-movie audiences. Carradine reportedly considered it the worst film he ever made. It was the last of Lugosi's nine Monogram features. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Horror · Comedy

A man posing as a ranch hand searches for the outlaw who killed his father and kidnapped his younger brother years before. John Wayne stars in one of the better-regarded Lone Star westerns. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western