Michael Whalen

Leslie Brooks plays Claire Cummings, a society columnist who marries rich and keeps moving up, leaving a trail of dead husbands and a psychologist, played by Robert Paige, who realizes too late what she is. A cold-blooded B noir from poverty-row distributor Film Classics, the film runs its femme fatale premise harder than most A-pictures dared: Claire kills without remorse and without a mitigating backstory. Brooks, usually a musical-comedy blonde, is the whole show here, and director Jack Bernhard keeps the melodrama lean and mean. Neglected for decades, it has since been reclaimed as a minor noir classic. It entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Noir · Crime · Drama

When a string of notorious criminals walks free on suspiciously easy parole, the federal government sends undercover agent Richard Hendricks to find out who is selling the state's leniency. Posing as wanted convict Rick Carson, Hendricks works his way into the gang run by the cunning Barney Rodescu — until his cover is blown and the racket turns on him. Directed by Alfred Zeisler and starring Michael O'Shea, Turhan Bey, and Evelyn Ankers, this lean Eagle-Lion release is a brisk Poverty Row noir built on an early version of the undercover-cop story. The film is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Crime · Noir · Thriller

Atomic-age creature feature from the dawn of AIP. Bodies are washing up on a California beach, glowing with radiation, and oceanographer Dr. Ted Stevens (Kent Taylor) goes undercover to find out why. The trail leads to Professor King's coastal lab, a stolen stash of uranium on the seabed — and the scaly, glowing-eyed mutant that radiation has spawned to guard it. Made by the Milner brothers for pennies and released by the fledgling American Releasing Corporation, it is quintessential 1950s drive-in sci-fi: stiff dialogue, rubbery monster, and a curiously effective finale. Its copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Sci-Fi · Horror