J. Carrol Naish

Fierce competition among sponge fishermen forces a Greek-American family to fish in the dangerous 12-mile reef area off the western coast of Florida. Mike and Tony Petrakis are a Greek father and son team who dive for sponges off the coast of Florida. After they are robbed by crooks, Arnold and the Rhys brothers, Mike decides to take his men to the dangerous 12-mile reef to dive for more sponges. Mike suffers a fatal accident when he falls from the reef leaving Tony to carry on the business. But now he has a companion, Gwyneth Rhys. —Kelly When their traditional sea beds no longer produce enough sponges for them to make a decent living, divers Mike Petrakis and his son Tony have to look elsewhere. Others in the close-knit Greek sponge-diving community have started going to the 12 mile reef but Mike will have nothing to do with the area since his other son died there in a diving accident. They try their hands in the Everglades but come up against Thomas Rhys and Arnold Dix who rob them. With few choices left to them, they head to the deadly reef where tragedy awaits them - and for Tony, love in the form of Rhys' daughter Gwyneth. —garykmcd

Mae Doyle comes back to her hometown a cynical woman. Her brother Joe fears that his love, fish cannery worker Peggy, may wind up like Mae. Mae marries Jerry and has a baby; she is happy but restless, drawn to Jerry's friend Earl. The bitter and cynical Mae Doyle returns to the fishing village where she was raised after deceptive loves and life in New York. She meets her brother, the fisherman Joe Doyle, and he lodges her in his home. Mae is courted by Jerry D'Amato, a good and naive man that owns the boat where Joe works, and he introduces his brutal friend Earl Pfeiffer, who works as theater's projectionist and is cheated by his wife. She does not like Earl and his jokes, but Jerry considers him his friend and they frequently see each other. Mae decides to accept the proposal of Jerry and they get married and one year later they have a baby girl. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil After ten long years of absence, Mae Doyle returns to her hometown of Monterey, California, disillusioned by the big-city lifestyle of New York. There, unattainable Mae's air of sophistication and confidence catches the eye of the hard-working, good-natured fisherman, Jerry, and his misogynistic, patronising, movie projectionist friend, Earl, who, right from the start, begins to court her. But, Mae has had her share of loser boyfriends, and even though she seems determined to spare an innocent her cynicism, she decides to take a second chance at love and marries Jerry. Now, one year and a baby daughter later, a silent undercurrent of unspoken desires and raw lust threaten Jerry's happiness. Once, Jerry promised that he would do anything for Mae. Is he prepared to lose everything in the aftermath of love? —Nick Riganas Without warning to anyone at her destination, Mae Doyle, having been east for ten years, returns home to the fishing community of Monterey, California to regroup in a sudden change in fortune having to do with her married politician lover having passed away and thus time away unfulfilled in her goal of a rich husband to take care of her. She moves back into the family cottage occupied by her brother, fisherman Joe Doyle, who is ambivalent to her return in they having different outlooks in life, he who just wants to settle down in their blue collar life with his cannery worker girlfriend, Peg. While Joe is concerned that Mae will give Peg, whose life experience has been relegated to Monterey, grand ideas of the world, Mae herself has to decide where her future lies as she catches the attention of two very different men. The first is Jerry D'Amato, Joe's boss, a simple man who lives with and is thus caregiver to his drunkard widowed father and his freeloading maternal Uncle Vince. Jerry wants a traditional family life with a wife who would look after him, while he in return would never hurt her, he thus being a "safe" but boring choice. The second is Joe's best friend, Earl Pfeiffer, who works as a projectionist at the movie theater. While Earl is already married, to a chorus girl on the road more often than she is at home, he too is a restless soul which manifests itself often in inappropriate behavior. While Mae understand someone like Earl more so than someone like Jerry, she also knows that Earl has the potential to be bad for her, especially in they being so like minded and in he seemingly and inherently not liking women. —Huggo

A cavalry officer posted on the Rio Grande is confronted with murderous raiding Apaches, a son who's a risk-taking recruit and his wife from whom he has been separated for many years. Rio Grande takes place after the Civil War when the Union turned their attention towards the Apaches. Union officer Kirby Yorke is in charge of an outpost on the Rio Grande in which he is in charge of training of new recruits one of which is his son whom he hasn't seen in 15 years. He whips him into shape to take on the Apaches but not before his mother shows up to take him out of there.The decision to leave is left up to Trooper Yorke who decides to stay and fight. Through it all Kirby and Kathleen though separated for years fall back into love and decide that it's time to give it another try. But Yorke faces his toughest battle when his unorthodox plan to outwit the elusive Apaches leads to possible court-martial. Locked in a bloody Indian war, he must fight to redeem his honor and save the love and lives of his broken family. —Christopher D. Ryan <cryan@direct.ca> Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke commands a U.S. cavalry troop north of the Rio Grande. Indians have been raiding and then fleeing south of the river into Mexico. Yorke is surprised when he learns that the son he has not seen for 15 years, Jeff, has flunked out of West Point. He's barely digested the information when his son shows up at the camp as a new cavalry recruit. His personal life gets even more complicated when his wife, Jeff's mother, Kathleen also shows up at the fort intent on taking her son home. As the situation increasingly deteriorates, the women and children are sent to safety but the wagon train is attacked and all the children taken forcing Yorke and his men to cross into Mexico to get them back. —garykmcd

A mad scientist injects his enemies with an acromegaly virus, causing them to become hideously deformed. Dr. Igor Markoff, an overbearing scientist, injects test subjects with an acromegaly serum, a glandular concoction that causes bones in their extremities and parts of the skull to grow out of proportion. Recipients become hideously deformed. After noting that famed concert pianist Anthony Lawrence's daughter Patricia strongly resembles his dead wife, he becomes obsessed with winning her favor. She already has a serious boyfriend, Bob Blake, who is also Lawrence's tour manager. Patricia rejects Markoff's advances. Still unwilling to give up, Markoff manages to injects her father with his acromegaly serum. Anthony's fingers start deforming such that he can no longer play and his face begins to grow distorted. In return for the antidote, Markoff intends to extort a fortune and demand the hand of the musician's pretty daughter. Markoff's long-time female assistant, Maxine, has secretly harbored a love for him for years. She is most distressed when she overhears of his intentions. So are Patricia and her boyfriend. —Garon Smith

It's some 20 years after the Frankenstein monster and the wolfman met their demise in "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman" (1943), but Dr Neimann [Boris Karloff] and his hunchback assistant Daniel [J Carroll Naish], currently locked in jail, still plan for a way to cure Daniel's deformity by Dr Frankenstein's operation. When lightning destroys the jail wall, they escape. They link up with Dr Lampini's traveling horror show, and Daniel kills Lampini [George Zucco] so that Neimann can take his place. They plan to head "towards those for whom I have UNloving memories." First stop is Regalberg where they revive Dracula [John Carradine], in the guise of Baron Latoes from Transylvania, who kills the Burgermeister who originally put Neimann in jail. Dracula is re-skeletonized by the morning sun as he attempts to crawl back into his coffin. Next, they head for the village of Frankenstein to search for Dr Frankenstein's records. Here, Daniel rescues and falls in love with gypsy girl Ilonka (Elena Verdugo]. They find the ice cave where the Frankenstein monster [Glenn Strange] and the wolfman [Lon Chaney, Jr] lie frozen, revive the wolfman, and enlist his help in return for a cure if he will help in transporting the monster to Neimann's old laboratory in Visaria. On the way to Visaria, Daniel and Neimann care for the monster while Larry Talbot [the wolfman] and Ilonka drive the wagon and fall in love, much to Daniel's dismay. They also kidnap two of Neimann's nemeses--Herr Ullman [Frank Reicher] and Herr Strauss [Michael Mark] -- because Neimann plans to give Ullman's brain to the monster, the monster's brain to Talbot, and the wolfman's brain to Strauss. Daniel begs for Talbot's body so he can have Ilonka, but Neimann says no. Daniel attempts to warn Ilonka about Talbot's wolfman side, but she refuses to believe him. To release his anger, Daniel whips the supposedly unconscious monster. The full moon rises that night, and Talbot changes to the wolfman. The next day he confesses to Ilonka. She vows to release him. That evening, Neimann finally gets down to business. He revives the monster but not soon enough. Talbot changes into the wolfman and attacks Ilonka who shoots him; they both die. Distraught, Daniel attacks Neimann, the monster kills Daniel, the villagers see the lights flickering in Neimann's laboratory windows and attack the monster, who carries Neimann's body into the swamp where they both get sucked into quicksand. [Original synopsis by bj_kuehl.]

While fighting in Libya during World War 2 Sergeant Joe Gunn (Humphrey Bogart) and his M3 Lee tank lovingly referred to as Lulabelle are attached to the British Eighth Army. A retreat order comes through and Joe and his crew, Waco (Bruce Bennet), and Jimmy Doyle (Dan Duryea) are separated from their division and travel across the desert hoping to avoid Rommel's troops, when they meet a rag tag group of British soldiers at a field hospital unaware of the retreat. In desperate need of water, Joe and his new passengers head into the desert toward the site of some ancient Roman ruins that contains a well many miles into the sand. Along the way they rescue an Italian soldier who goes by the name of Guiseppi (J. Carrol Naish - who was nominated for an Academy Award "Best Actor In A Supporting Role") and a Sudanese soldier and are attacked by a German fighter 'plane. They shoot down the 'plane and take the pilot prisoner and soon learn that there are hundreds of German soldiers needing water who are also heading for the same well that Gunn and his crew are heading for. When Gunn arrives at the watering hole the flow of water is very slow and they work diligently to get enough for themselves. Wanting to slow down the incoming Germans and prevent them from rejoining the war, Gunn sends Waco out across the desert hoping to get relief from the British 8th Army, but the question is whether the desert may prove to be too much.

Drummond, his girlfriend and his butler set out to rescue a high-ranking Scotland Yard officer who has been kidnapped. On the eve of his wedding Captain Hugh Drummond is off to Morocco when Scotland Yard's Colonel J.A. Nielson is kidnapped by international criminal Richard Lane. With his fiancée Phyllis Clavering, friend 'Algy' Longworth and his trusty valet 'Tenny' Tennyson, Bulldog flies his own plane 1200 miles only to find the local British Consul ordering him home without delay. Drummond isn't an easy man to get rid of however and they soon mount their rescue plan. —garykmcd As his wedding to Phyllis Clavering approaches, 'Bulldog' Drummond has taken extreme precautions to avoid getting caught up in another adventure that would delay the wedding. But even as they make their final preparations, their friend Colonel Neilson is being kidnapped by a gang headed by the traitorous Richard Lane. Phyllis witnesses the abduction, and quickly finds Drummond to tell him. They track the gang to Morocco, where they will face many obstacles to their goal of rescuing Neilson. —Snow Leopard

A district attorney and a reporter try to find the killer of a D.A. who uncovered a massive stock fraud. A district attorney is investigating a utility company's directors for fraud. He gets a call about some incriminating evidence, but it's a ploy to lure him to an apartment where he is gunned down. To make the shooting seem less like an effort to suppress the investigation, it's made it look like the district attorney was keeping a jealous mistress. Andy Terrell, his wisecracking newspaperman friend, is networked with practically everyone and gets curious. Things get complicated for the utility company directors because Lionel Houston, now the new district attorney, is dating Diane Cromwell, the daughter of utility director Grover Cromwell. Andy uses his connections in low places to ferret out information but runs afoul of the king-pin Bruno by dallying with his lady. The utility directors were using their purloined funds to gamble in other stocks. Suddenly, they have no funds left plus cooked books. One tells Grover that he knows how to get his hands on $1M in gold bullion. He thinks he has talked Grover into fleeing with him, but Grover decides to arrange for a train/car accident so that his insurance will provide for his daughter. Lionel is lured by Bruno to a meeting but brings reinforcements. —Garon Smith