Frank R. Strayer

A Depression-era family drama built around music. Aging concert violinist Adolph Greig (Al Shean, of the vaudeville team Gallagher and Shean) has sacrificed everything for his art; his son (John Darrow) distrusts him and keeps his own boy from the old man, while Paula (Evelyn Brent) — once Adolph's pupil — is torn between the two generations. Directed by Poverty Row workhorse Frank R. Strayer for Invincible Pictures, it is a sentimental studio B-feature redeemed by its musical sequences and Shean's warm performance. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Music

A 1932 American mystery film directed by Frank R. Strayer. When a plane makes an emergency landing during a storm, the passengers take refuge in a deserted house—only to discover that one of them is a killer. After a man is murdered and diamonds stolen, everyone becomes a suspect in this "old dark house" whodunit. The film stars Gene Morgan, Doris Hill, Glenn Tryon, and Vera Reynolds, and was distributed by Mayfair Pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime

When corpses drained of blood begin appearing in a small European village, the townspeople suspect a vampire. The local police chief doubts it, but the village doctor insists the supernatural is real, and suspicion falls on a simple-minded young man who keeps bats as pets. The Vampire Bat is an early sound horror film made to cash in on the success of Dracula and Frankenstein, and it borrows freely from both. It stars Lionel Atwill as the doctor, Fay Wray as his assistant, Melvyn Douglas as the skeptical policeman, and Dwight Frye, fresh off Renfield in Dracula, as the accused simpleton. The film is in the public domain because it was published without a proper copyright notice.

Horror