Barbara Payton

A 1951 jungle horror film written and directed by Curt Siodmak, the screenwriter of The Wolf Man. On a rubber plantation deep in the Amazon, foreman Barney Chavez (Raymond Burr) kills his employer and takes his beautiful wife Dina (Barbara Payton) — but a witch's curse condemns him to transform into a gorilla, stalking the jungle while the police commissioner (Lon Chaney Jr.) closes in. Essentially a loupe-garou tale transplanted to the tropics, it is a minor-key cult item with a remarkable cast for its budget. The film is in the public domain.

Horror

A 1951 Civil War Western directed by production design legend William Cameron Menzies. In 1864, a small Confederate artillery unit under Major Clay Clayburn (James Craig) hauls four cannons to the top of Devil's Mountain, a Georgia peak overlooking the railroad supplying Sherman's march on Atlanta. Their mission: block the Federal trains as long as possible. Opposing them is Union Major Will Denning (Guy Madison) — Clayburn's best friend from West Point — while Kathy Summers (Barbara Payton), the woman both men love, is caught between them. Shot in vivid SuperCineColor, it is in the public domain.

Western

A batch of freshly printed counterfeit bills traced to imprisoned counterfeiter Tris Stewart sends the U.S. Treasury Department scrambling, so agents engineer his escape and turn him loose — betting he will lead them to the engraving plates. Stewart plays both sides, rekindling things with his girlfriend Meg while undercover agent John Downey closes in. Lloyd Bridges is the slippery counterfeiter, with Barbara Payton as Meg and John Hoyt as the agent on his tail. Richard Fleischer directs this lean semi-documentary noir in the style of T-Men, shot on location around Los Angeles. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Crime · Noir · Drama