Dick Purcell

Richard Arlen stars as Jim Clark, a pilot running a small airline service out of Los Angeles, with Jean Parker as the stewardess torn between him and a smooth-talking passenger. That passenger is a spy who has stolen a secret military navigation device, and when his escape is bungled he hijacks the airliner mid-flight. The plane goes down in the wilderness, leaving the survivors stranded as a forest fire closes in. One of the early "Dollar Bills" from Pine-Thomas Productions, Paramount's B-picture unit, Flying Blind is a compact wartime aviation thriller released just months before Pearl Harbor. Its copyright was never renewed, placing it in the public domain.

Action · Adventure · Drama

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

Private detective Humphrey Campbell tracks down a missing girl for a bank vault company, only to find her murdered — and his search pulls in a psychic act, a collection of eccentric suspects, and his own sharp-tongued wife Louise. Chester Morris plays the brash Campbell, a lighter riff on his Boston Blackie persona, with Jean Parker as Louise. A fast, cheap, and lively Pine-Thomas production for Paramount, directed by Frank McDonald and adapted from a novel by Daniel Mainwaring writing as Geoffrey Homes. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Mystery · Comedy