Jessie Arnold

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 Poverty Row pre-Code western from M. H. Hoffman Jr.'s Allied Pictures, directed by Otto Brower. Rodeo champion turned cowboy star Hoot Gibson plays William Penn "Peaceful" Patton, a mild-mannered cowhand raised on pacifism who is mistaken for the notorious outlaw known as the Hard Hombre. Trading on the outlaw's fearsome reputation, Peaceful strong-arms a valley of ranchers into a fair division of grazing land — until his mother arrives and exposes the masquerade, and the real Hard Hombre rides in for revenge. Shot around the Vasquez Rocks, the film also carries a quiet piece of screen history: Florence Lawrence, the very first movie star of the silent era, appears in a minor role. It is in the public domain in the United States.

Western