Wallace Ford

Bela Lugosi at his most committedly absurd: Dr. James Brewster, a scientist whose experiments with ape glands have turned him into a stooped, shaggy ape-man who must harvest human spinal fluid to stay alive. Wallace Ford and Louise Currie play the reporters who stumble onto the story, and Henry Hall wanders through as the creepiest character in the picture — a mysterious man who keeps appearing to comment on events. Shot in a week for Monogram under William Beaudine, it is cheap even by poverty-row standards, but Lugosi plays the degradation with real conviction, and the final twist is genuinely strange. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Horror · Sci-Fi

Bela Lugosi plays the title role in this Monogram poverty-row thriller, a Chinatown crime lord hunting down the twelve legendary coins of Confucius, which are said to grant their possessor control of a Chinese province. Bodies start turning up across the district as Wong's men retrieve the coins one by one, and wisecracking reporter Jason Barton, played by Wallace Ford, follows the trail into Wong's secret headquarters. Lugosi is clearly enjoying himself in a dual role that lets him be both the suave mastermind and his own humble shopkeeper cover. Directed by William Nigh, a Monogram regular who also helmed several of the studio's Mr. Wong detective films. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Mystery · Crime · Thriller

A 1936 American murder mystery directed by Robert F. Hill and produced by Sam Katzman. A young couple, Jimmy Kelly (Wallace Ford) and Marjorie Burns (Barbara Pepper), arrive at the Red Rock Tavern seeking to marry, only to find themselves trapped with a group of suspicious guests when a killer begins picking off the occupants one by one. As the body count rises and the phone lines are cut, Jimmy—a detective himself—must unmask the murderer among the stranded travelers. The film co-stars Joan Woodbury and Clara Kimball Young and was released by Puritan Pictures. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Mystery