Ian Wolfe

A radical American journalist becomes involved with the Communist revolution in Russia, and hopes to bring its spirit and idealism to the United States. American journalist John Reed journeys to Russia to document the Bolshevik Revolution and returns a revolutionary. His fervor for left-wing politics leads him to Louise Bryant, then married, who will become a feminist icon and activist. Politics at home become more complicated as the rift grows between reality and Reed's ideals. Bryant takes up with a cynical playwright, and Reed returns to Russia, where his health declines. —Jwelch5742 The joint lives of journalists and activists John Reed - referred to as Jack in familiar circumstances - and Louise Bryant from 1915 to 1920 are presented, the former who, at the time of the making of this movie, is the only American to be buried at the Kremlin in a place of honor. In their life together, they are sometimes friends, sometimes lovers, sometimes spouses, but always idealists who hold steadfast to their beliefs. They initially meet in Portland, Oregon in 1915 when Jack returns to his hometown on a speaking engagement, he already a well known "liberal" journalist writing about how the working class is paying the price for the elitists calling the shots in the war, with Louise the repressed wife of dentist Paul Trullinger, she who has dabbled in journalism as a means of independence from her traditional life. She is protective about her writing and how to get her point of view across, which often does not mesh even with those who may agree with that point of view. Jack and Louise attracted to each other sexually and emotionally, he asks her to return to New York with him both to be with him and to give her the freedom to write what she really wants. In New York, they associate with Jack's friends - who include among others playwright Eugene O'Neill and writer/activist Emma Goldman - who largely dismiss Louise as a lightweight, just the latest of Jack's girlfriends, and/or solely, in the minds of many of the men, a sexual being to be exploited. Despite their relationship/marriage largely at its end, Jack is able to convince Louise to travel to Russia with him in 1917 to report on and be involved with the Bolshevik Revolution, which Jack feels could be the impetus for the end of the war, and if successful, a model for the American working class. It ends up being a game changer in their lives, for Jack seeing the success of the working class, and for Louise being caught up in the fervor of true idealism coming to fruition regardless of the specific issue. The Revolution will have an impact on their lives in a different way as a possible cause of them never seeing each other again, as (1) it causes Russia to be an isolated nation, (2) the scourge of Communism, Jack who is largely seen as the face of it in the US, being something that most in the mainstream of American life would like to see eradicated, and (3) Communism in Russia not being true to the academic definition of the term and perhaps not quite what Jack or his socialist associates in the US had envisioned. Through it all, an issue in the background but one that plays an integral part of their story is Jack's poor health, something that he does little to improve or care for in his goal of forwarding his leftist ideals. Interspersed with the dramatization of Jack and Louise's life are current day interviews with real life players who knew Jack and/or Louise, or who knew of the issues with which they were dealing. —Huggo Based on the true story of Jack Reed (played by Warren Beatty) and Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton), two American socialists and writers. During WW1 they actively campaigned for and wrote about socialist causes. When the news of the Russian Revolution broke this was seen as the chance for socialism to gain a greater foothold and popularity. Reed went to Russia to see what could be learned from the revolution and took the ideas back to the US, forming the Communist Labor Party of America. Things weren't all plain-sailing though, both in the relationship between Reed and Bryant and in politics. —grantss This movie tells the true story of John Reed , a radical American journalist around the time of World War I. He soon meets Louise Bryant, a respectable married woman, who dumps her husband for Reed and becomes an important feminist and radical in her own right. After involvement with labor and political disputes in the US, they go to Russia in time for the October Revolution in 1917, when the Communists siezed power. Inspired, they return to the US, hoping to lead a similar revolution. A particularly fascinating aspect of the movie is the inclusion of interviews with "witnesses", the real-life surviving participants in the events of the movie. —Reid Gagle

Two bumbling hustlers in the 1920s attempt to gain the fortune of an heiress. Nothing will stop them, not even murder. The early 1900s with its Mann Act (disallowing women to be transported across state lines for immoral reasons) brings a married man to devise a scheme for taking his upper-class girlfriend away with him. He simply has her marry his unmarried buddy. However, it doesn't take very long before both men start laying claim to her affection. Until, that is, she's about to be cut out of her parents' fortune. So, a new scheme is devised, which only adds to their problems, as well as to the sly whimsy of this movie. —BOB STEBBINS <stebinsbob@aol.com> It's sometime in the 1920s, when it is illegal, as per the Mann Act, for a man to transport a woman across state lines for immoral purposes, which is what married Nicky Stumpo wants to do with Freddie Bigard. Since he can't marry her himself for that purpose of crossing the state line, Nicky instead enlists his friend Oscar Sullivan, who is trying to evade the local police for embezzlement, to marry Freddie instead. The three, who plan to live together, will masquerade as an extended family under assumed surnames, Freddie and Oscar indeed married, with Nicky Freddie's brother, while behind closed doors Oscar will be the platonic third wheel in Nicky and Freddie's love nest. Although he is purportedly doing it for love, Nicky really wants access to Freddie's money, she being an heiress to a fortune about which Nicky tries to convince Oscar is untrue. The situation becomes more complicated with the combination of Oscar wanting to have his own way with Freddie, as he also does confirm Freddie's own personal wealth, and as Freddie informs her husband and "brother" that she plans on giving away her money. As such, Nicky and Oscar figure the only thing they can do to reach that goal of getting her money is to do away with her permanently - making it look either like suicide or an accident - which is easier said than done in how hapless they are as murderers. —Huggo

In the 21st century, sexual intercourse and reproduction are prohibited, whereas use of mind-altering drugs is mandatory to enforce compliance among the citizens and to ensure their ability to conduct dangerous and demanding tasks. Emotions, coitus, and the concept of family are taboo. Everyone is clad in identical uniforms and has shaven heads to emphasize equality, except the police androids (who wear black) and robed monks. Instead of names, people have designations with three arbitrary letters (referred to as the "prefix") and four digits, shown on an identity badge worn at all times. At their jobs in central video control centers, SEN 5241 and LUH 3417 keep surveillance on the city. LUH has a male roommate, THX 1138, who works in a factory producing android police officers. At the beginning of the story, THX leaves the job while the loudspeakers urge the workers to "increase safety" - and congratulate them for only losing 195 workers in the last period - to the competing factory's 242. On the way home, he stops at a confession booth in a row of many, and mumbles prayers about "party" and "masses", under the portrait of "OMM 0000". A soothing voice greets THX, and OMM ends every confession with a parting salutation: "You are a true believer, blessings of the State, blessings of the masses. Work hard, increase production, prevent accidents and be happy". At home, THX takes his drugs and watches holobroadcasts while engaging with a masturbatory device. LUH secretly substitutes pills in her possession for THX's medications, whereupon THX eventually suffers physical discomfort (vomiting) along with mental/emotional changes (confusion). The drug substitution also leads to LUH and THX becoming involved romantically, resulting in the two engaging in intercourse. THX later is confronted by SEN, who arranges THX as his new roommate, but THX files a complaint against SEN for the illegal housing mate change. Without drugs in his system, THX falters during a critical and hazardous phase of his job, and a control center engages a "mind lock" on THX which raises the level of danger. After the release of the mind lock, THX makes the necessary correction to that work phase. THX and LUH are arrested. THX enjoys a brief reunion with LUH, disrupted shortly after she reveals her pregnancy. At THX's trial, THX is sentenced to prison, alongside SEN. Most of the prisoners seem uninterested in escape, but eventually THX and SEN find an exit and they are later joined by hologram SRT 5752, who starred in the holobroadcasts. During the escape, THX and SRT are separated from SEN. Chased by the police robots, THX and SRT are trapped in a control center, from which THX learns that LUH has been "consumed", and her name has been reassigned to fetus 66691 in a growth chamber. SEN eventually escapes to an area reserved for the monks of OMM, where a lone monk notices that SEN has no identification badge. SEN attacks him and later wanders into a child-rearing area, strikes up a conversation with children, and sits aimlessly until police androids apprehend him. THX and SRT steal two cars, but SRT crashes his into a concrete pillar. Pursued by two police androids on motorcycles, THX flees to the limits of the city and escapes into a ventilation shaft. The police androids pursue him on motorcycles along the ventilation shaft to an escape ladder, but are ordered by Central Command to cease pursuit, on grounds that the expense of his capture exceeds their budget by 6%. The city is then revealed to be entirely underground, and THX has escaped onto the surface, where he then witnesses the sun setting.

A few years after War War II, in London, Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power), is accused of murdering a rich widow, Emily French (Norma Varden), who has recently changed her will and bequeathed him a substantial sum of money. Sir Wilfred Robarts (Charles Laughton), a skilled lawyer who has Just be released from hospital, is asked to defend Vole. Sir Wilfred's doctor has instructed him to avoid excitement. After his hand-picked replacement barrister expresses doubt over Vole's innocence, Sir Wilfred decides to handle the case himself, despite protests from his nurse (Elsa Lanchester). After a conversation with Mrs. Christine Vole (Marlene Dietrich) and assessing her attitude, Sir Wilfred decides not to call on her to testify in defense of her husband. In the courtroom, Christine Vole surprisingly appears as a Witness for the Prosecution. A parade of circumstantial evidence points to Vole being the likely murderer. Christine's testimony does not provide an alibi for her husband. All seems lost as the defense concludes its case. But a late night phone call reveals new evidence that Christine wrote letters to an anonymous lover named Max about purposely denying her husband an alibi to get her freedom. This evidence changes the jury's opinion and Leonard is acquitted. However, Sir Wilfred suspects something is amiss with this sudden reversal and dramatic convenient evidence. All is revealed in the last dramatic court scene, as Christine admits to deliberately sabotaging her own testimony with the letters, to get her guilty husband freed. But in the penultimate twist, Leonard shows his true stripes and reveals his intention to leave his "wife" for a younger woman. Christine seizes the knife used as evidence of an accidental cut causing Vole's bloody jacket and, in full view of Sir Wilfred, his nurse (Miss Plimsoll), and the other woman, stabs Leonard, killing him. Miss Plimsoll cancels Sir Wilfred's planned trip to Bermuda and announces he will defend Christine Vole in her trial for murder.

In the 1890s, young Harry Houdini is performing with a Coney Island carnival as Bruto, the Wild Man, when Bess, a naive onlooker, tries to protect him from the blows of Schultz, his "trainer." Harry then appears as magician The Great Houdini and, spotting Bess in the audience, invites her on stage. Harry flirts with the unsuspecting Bess during his act, but she flees from him in a panic. When Bess shows up to watch Harry perform two more times, however, he corners her. Bess admits her attraction, and soon after, the two appear at Harry's mother's house, newly married. Bess becomes Harry's onstage partner, touring the country with him, but soon grows tired of the low pay and grueling schedule. After Bess convinces Harry to take a job in a locksmith factory, Harry works as a lock tester while fantasizing about escaping from one of the factory's large safes. On Halloween, Harry and Bess attend a special magicians' dinner at the Astor Hotel, during which magician Fante offers a prize to anyone who can free himself from a straight-jacket. Harry accepts the challenge and, through intense concentration, extricates himself from the jacket, greatly impressing Fante. Afterward, however, Fante advises Harry to "drop it," noting that Johann Von Schweger, a German magician, retired at the height of his career after performing a similar feat, fearful of his own talents. Bess then persuades Harry to give her his prize, a single, round-trip boat ticket to Europe, so that she can cash it in for a down payment on a house. Later, at the factory, Harry locks himself inside one of the big safes, determined to make an escape. Before he can get out, however, the foreman orders the safe blown open, then fires Harry. That night, in front of his mother, Harry and Bess argue about their future, and frustrated by Bess's insistence that he quit magic, Harry walks out. Soon, a contrite Bess finds Harry performing with a carnival and presents him with two one-way tickets to Europe. Sometime later, at a London theater, Harry and Bess are concluding their magic act when a reporter named Dooley challenges Harry to break out of one of Scotland Yard's notoriously secure jail cells. Harry, who hired Dooley to issue the challenge, accepts the challenge, unaware that the jail's cells do not have locks in the door, but on the outside wall. Despite the added difficulty, the dexterous, determined Houdini picks the cell lock and appears on time for his next performance. Now billed as the "man who escaped from Scotland Yard," Harry begins a successful tour of Europe with Bess. In Berlin, Harry is joined by his mother and begins searching for the reclusive Von Schweger. While performing an impromptu levitation trick with Bess at a restaurant, Harry is arrested for fraud. During his trial, Harry denies that he ever made claims to supernatural powers, insisting that all his tricks are accomplished through physical means. To prove his point, Harry locks himself in a safe in the courtroom and breaks out a few minutes later, noting that safe locks are designed to keep thieves out, not in. Vindicated, Harry then goes to see Von Schweger, who finally has responded to his queries, but learns from Von Schweger's assistant, Otto, that the magician died two days earlier. Otto reveals that Von Schweger summoned Harry to ask him the secret of "dematerialization," a feat he accomplished once but could not repeat. Although Harry demurs, Otto insists on becoming Harry's new assistant and travels with him to New York. There, Harry finds he is virtually unknown, so for publicity, hangs upside down on a skyscraper flagpole, constrained by a straight-jacket. Harry executes the escape and soon makes a name for himself in America. To prepare to be submerged in a box in the chilly Detroit River, Harry bathes in an ice-filled bathtub. During the trick, which takes place on Halloween, the rope holding the box breaks, and the box drops upside down into an opening in the ice-covered river. Although Harry manages to escape from the box, the current drags him downstream, and he struggles to find air pockets under the ice and swim back to the opening. Above, Bess and the horrified audience assume Harry has drowned and proclaim his demise. To Bess's relief, Harry shows up later at their hotel, admitting that he heard his mother's voice, directing him toward the opening. Just then, Harry receives word that his mother died at the exact time that he heard her voice. Two years later in New York, Harry, who has not performed since his mother's death, reveals to Simms, a reporter, that he has been trying to contact his mother's spirit, without success. Harry invites Simms to attend a seance with him, and after the medium appears to have communicated with his mother, Harry and Otto expose her as a fake. After a public crusade against phony mediums, Harry decides to return to the stage and builds a watery "torture cell" for the occasion. Terrified, Bess threatens to leave Harry unless he drops the dangerous trick, and he agrees not to perform it. Before the show, Harry admits to Otto that his appendix is tender, but goes on, despite the pain. When the audience noisily demands that he perform the advertised "water torture" trick, Harry succumbs and is immersed, straight-jacketed and upside down, in a tank of water. Weak, Harry cannot execute the escape and loses consciousness. Otto breaks the tank's glass, and after reviving, Harry vows to a weeping Bess that he will "come back."

After a gentlewoman is found dead with her throat torn out, the villagers blame a supernatural monster. But Sherlock Holmes, who gets drawn into the case from nearby Quebec, suspects a human murderer. While attending a conference in Quebec City, Sherlock Holmes and his good friend, Dr. Watson, are drawn into a murder investigation in the nearby village of La Mort Rouge. Holmes had received a letter from Lady Penrose asking for his assistance as she feared for her life. It was too late, however, as she had already been killed by the time he received it. Her throat was torn out and the local villagers are spreading rumors about monsters and evil spirits as being the cause. Holmes doesn't believe any of that and sets out to find the killer. He believes that Lady Penrose's past as an actress may have something to with her death. As others in the village are attacked, Holmes believes the killer is among them, impersonating a local villager as he goes about his business. —garykmcd A village in Canada has an old legend about a phantom that years ago killed three villagers. Many residents are afraid that the monster has come back because some of them have seen strange luminous shapes and some sheep were found with their throats slashed. Their worst fears seem to be confirmed when Lady Penrose is found killed in the same way. Meanwhile, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are in Quebec attending a meeting of the Royal Canadian Occult Society where they are involved in a sharp debate with Lord Penrose about his village's legend. Not long after Lord Penrose receives word of his wife's death, Holmes receives a letter that the dead woman had written before she died, begging for his help and protection. When Holmes goes to the village to investigate, he finds himself hunting a determined murderer who is also a master of disguise. —Snow Leopard

After a valuable pearl with a sinister reputation is stolen, Sherlock Holmes must investigate its link to a series of brutal murders. After a pearl with a sinister reputation for causing misfortune to its owners is stolen from a museum by a master criminal - because of Sherlock Holmes' show-boating - he is naturally obliged to find it. Soon, he learns of a series of brutal murders that seemed to have been committed by a malevolent man mountain known only as the Creeper. Now, Holmes must deal with the seemingly overwhelming menace of this man and his boss in order to retrieve the pearl. —Kenneth Chisholm <kchishol@execulink.com> After recovering the famous Borgia pearl from shipboard thieves, Sherlock Holmes is held responsible for its theft. While visiting the museum where it goes on display, Holmes shows the curator how easily it could be stolen by simply cutting the electrical wires. During that demonstration, Giles Conover, a well-known thief, snatches the pearl and runs off. He's soon caught but the pearl is nowhere to be found. Soon after, homes are being broken into with the occupants having their backs broken. There also seems to be a large amount of china broken in the process. After several such break-ins, Holmes realizes that several similar pieces of porcelain, all of a bust of Napoleon, are found at each house. Realizing its significance, he sets a trap for the thief. —garykmcd

Munitions worker Barry Kane is falsely accused of setting fire to the Stuarts Aircraft Factory in Los Angeles, a fire that caused the death of his best friend, Ken Mason. Barry realizes that the real saboteur is Frank Fry, the man who handed him a fire extinguisher, which turned out to be full of gasoline. Remembering that Fry had an envelope addressed to him from the Deep Springs Ranch in Springfield, California, Barry goes there to find the killer, but the ranch's owner, Charles Tobin, tells him that he does not know Fry. Tobin's granddaughter, however, hands Barry a telegram addressed to Tobin from Fry stating that Fry is going to Soda City. Although Tobin has Barry arrested, Barry manages to escape from the police by jumping off a bridge. He then seeks refugee from a rainstorm in the home of blind composer Philip Martin. His sanctuary is invaded by the arrival of Martin's niece, New York model Patricia Martin, and though Philip senses Barry's innocence, Pat attempts to turn him over to the police. The fugitive is then forced to abduct her, and when their car breaks down in the California desert, Barry and Pat hitch a ride with a circus troupe. Later, they arrive in the ghost town of Soda City, which, they discover, is the hideout of saboteurs Freeman and Neilson. Barry is able to convince the killers that he is one of them, so Freeman offers him safe passage to New York City. Pat is convinced of Barry's duplicity as well, so she goes to the police. Once in New York, Freeman takes Barry to the mansion of society woman Mrs. Henrietta Sutton, where Pat is now being held by the saboteurs. Tobin then arrives and declares that his operation has been exposed by Pat's uncle and that Barry is not a part of their operation. As the fifth columnists discuss their plans to kill Barry and Pat, the two sneak into Mrs. Sutton's society ball. After Pat is snatched away from him, however, Barry is forced to turn himself over to Tobin. The next day, the saboteurs, posing as newsreel photographers, plot to blow up the battleship U.S.S. Alaska during its christening at the Brooklyn naval yards. Barry manages to escape from the Sutton mansion by setting off the fire alarm, and he stops Fry and the other saboteurs from blowing up the battleship, though the dock itself is destroyed. The saboteurs then take Barry back to their skyscraper hideout, where the police await them, as Pat had managed to escape herself and get help. Fry escapes to a nearby movie theater, but Barry is unable to convince the police to go after him, so Pat follows the saboteur to the Statue of Liberty. There, she calls the FBI and they rush to the monument with Barry. Barry chases Fry to the statue's torch, where the saboteur slips into the statue's hand and clings desperately to the giant palm. Barry tries to save him, but when the hem of Fry's jacket sleeve tears, the murderer is sent plunging to his death.