Virginia Christine

A daughter brings her fiance home to meet her parents, not having told them he`s black.

An apparently delusional and paranoid Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) has been arrested on a California highway and taken to a local hospital's psychiatric ward. There he tells a psychiatrist, Dr. Hill (Whit Bissell), and the attending physician, Dr. Bassett (Richard Deacon) his fantastic story. Several days earlier, Miles had been called home to Santa Mira from a medical convention. His nurse, Sally Withers (Jean Willes) told him that several patients had come in frantically insisting that their relatives and friends were not who they seemed to be. On the way to the office, Miles and Sally nearly ran over young Jimmy Grimaldi (Bobby Clark) who was fleeing from his mother (Eileen Stevens). Mrs. Grimaldi says Jimmy simply didn't want to go to school. Miles was sad to see that the Grimaldis had shut down their vegetable stand because it was too much work. Later, at his office, Miles learned that many of the patients begging for his return claimed they no longer needed his services. A former girlfriend, Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) stopped by. She told him that her cousin, Wilma (Virginia Christine), insisted that her father, Ira (Tom Fadden), wasn't who he seemed to be. Miles agreed to visit Wilma later. Miles and Becky chatted, revealing that they both had recently divorced. After lunch, Jimmy Grimaldi was brought to Miles's office by his grandmother. He insisted that his mother was not really his mother. Suspicious, Miles gave the boy a sedative and told his grandmother to keep the boy at her house that night. Miles and Becky visited Ira and Wilma. Miles admitted his examination of Ira led him to conclude that it was indeed Ira. Wilma insisted that although nothing physically or mentally seemed different about him, his emotional connection to her was wrong. Wilma agreed to see a psychiatrist to discuss her concerns. That night, Becky and Miles went to dinner and encountered the town psychiatrist, Dan Kauffman (Larry Gates), in the parking lot. He mentioned that he too had seen many perplexing cases of people claiming that loved ones had somehow changed. Before they could eat, Miles and Becky were called to the house of Jack and Teddy Belicec (King Donovan and Carolyn Jones). They had found an inert, featureless humanoid creature in their poolroom. Teddy was disturbed by it, and the creature seemed to be taking on Jack's features. It even bled from a hand as Jack did when he cut it on a piece of glass. Miles took Becky home to her father's house. Her father (Kenneth Patterson) seemed normal but Miles was disturbed by something. Returning to the Driscoll house later that night, he broke into the basement and found another humanoid transforming itself into Becky. He snuck upstairs and rescued Becky. Miles and Jack called Dan Kauffman to see the bodies at the Belicecs' and Driscolls'. Both were missing. Dan suggested that they found a real dead human in Jack's poolroom and that its cause of death had been too small for Miles to notice in his examination. He also suggested that Miles saw Becky's double because he had been so unsettled by the mysterious body at the Belicecs'. Becky's father had called the police when he heard Dan, Jack and Miles in his basement. When Police Chief Grivett (Ralph Dumke) arrived, he informed them that a burning body matching the description of what the Belicecs found had been discovered burning outside of town. In town the next day, Miles encountered Wilma who told him she felt better about Ira and didn't need to see Dan. Based on Miles's demeanor she realized he knew something, and told Becky's father, who was hiding in her antique store. At his office, Miles saw Jimmy smiling next to his mother in the waiting room, apparently unconcerned about her anymore. That night, Miles, Becky and the Belicecs planned to barbeque. But Miles found enormous seed pods in his greenhouse. The pods opened up and inert bodies fell out. They quickly began to take the form of Miles and his guests. Miles tried to call the FBI in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Washington D.C. but was told by the operator that the lines are dead. Miles destroyed the creatures, then he and Becky and the Belicecs split up, hoping to get out of town. Miles and Becky stopped for gas. When Miles went to a phone booth to try to reach the FBI again, the gas station attendant placed two pods in the trunk of his car. Miles realized this and destroyed the pods later. He drove to Sally's house. Sneaking up to a window, he saw that she too had been transformed into a pod person and coolly planned to place a seed pod in the crib of her newborn. Miles was discovered by another police officer. Miles and Becky escaped, pursued by the police and other pod people. Miles and Becky hid out in Miles's office. Realizing that the pods were most effective at replacing people when they were asleep, they took amphetamines to stay awake. The next morning, they saw police officers detain people just arriving to town, and watched as transformed citizens accepted pods to take to their relatives in nearby cities. Jack, Dan and Chief Grivett arrived. Miles and Becky were horrified to learn they'd all been transformed. Jack and Dan explained that the pods had arrived from outer space and that the transformation was painless. Soon everyone would be reborn into a better way of life, evolved beyond human emotions like hate and love. Jack and Dan brought pods into Miles's waiting room and locked Miles and Becky in the office. Miles filled three syringes with a sedative, then created a diversion that brought Dan and Jack back into the office. Miles struggled with them but drugged them, with Becky taking care of Grivett. Hoping to pretend to have been transformed by appearing emotionless, Becky and Miles made their way out of the office and into the street. But Becky saw a truck nearly hit a dog and called out in fear. Alerted, the pod people chased Becky and Miles into the hills around Santa Mira. They hid in an abandoned mine. Miles left Becky to try to find help. When he returned, he found Becky asleep. He tried to carry her to safety but learned when he kissed her that she had been transformed too. With other pod people in pursuit, Miles ran to the highway. He pleaded with motorists to stop but they considered him crazy. He saw a truck full of pods headed to Los Angeles. Miles wandered the highway, telling people that "They're already here! You're next!" Drs. Hill and Basset consider Miles insane and plan his treatment. Then an ambulance brings in a truck driver who had been in an accident. His truck was full of unusual pods, and had been on the road from Santa Mira. Realizing Miles is telling the truth, Dr. Hill immediately calls the police and the FBI.

As World War II nears its end, beautiful women forced to serve as sex slaves in a German officer's club, do what they can to destroy the plans of a cosmic death ray. The war in Europe is over, the Japanese are about to surrender after the Nagasaki bombing, but a group of die-hard German Nazis are holding on in Shanghai, protecting an ingenious invention of mass destruction - a cosmic ray generator that is 1000 times more deadly than the A-bomb. Col. Von Meyer is about to pass the secret of the weapon to Col. Noyoma, as Japan is still at war, and will use it to revenge their recent losses. However, Field Marshal Von Runzel arrives with precise orders to the contrary: the Japanese shall not have the secret weapon, for an underground Nazi ring is to use it later in another attempt to destroy all the Allied Nations, and conquer the world in a third Worl War. Von Meyer decides to create a diversion, and to offer the Japanese scientist and officers some "evening entertainment" at the German Officers' Club. Thaler, the female German Officer, is to bring in a number of women - arrested on trumped up charges at the Shanghai University - dress them up, and force them to service the lusty Japanese officers. First, he asks for volunteers, but only the French entertainer Yvette comes forward. The other five women (American, English, Austalian, Russian and Mexican) stubbornly refuse. Then he shouts at them: "I say, naturally you'll all volunteer!" The 16-year-old Australian girl finds her mother as a hard-laborer at the club, they rejoice for a while, but knowing that her pure catholic girl will be ravished that night, Mrs. James kills her daughter instead. Her absence will not be missed much, as two other young women arrive, a Chinese and a Japanese. Soon, the Germans are about to betray the Japanese, but the American is in cahoots with an infiltrated German officer who's really her husband (an OSS spy), the Chinese is trying to make the others believe that Maya is an infiltrated Japanese agent, while Lili herself is seeing a Chinese servant of the Germans in secret, and the women are justly suspicious of Yvette - who is getting fond of the bald-head Colonel Von Meyer... In the end, the American plot is uncovered, the Germans and the Japanese start killing each others, and the fugitive American and Chinese spies. A number of people die in heroic gun-fights. Maya is going to defuse the bombs left in the wine cellar by the escaping Americans, so that the Japanese will get the secret weapon in the end. However Yvette decides to change her loyalty to her country, thinking of what the English girl told her. The two women clash in a desperate fight all over the place, as the fuse is burning - with the future of humankind at stake. —Artemis-9 Six women from the main Allied Nations battling the German-Japanese Axis in WW2 are arrested by the Germans in Shanghai University, under the false accusation they are accomplices of the killing of a German officer in the Hospital. Two Asian women will join the group, and eventually it is revealed that there are at least three underground spies amongst the small group. Some will survive, others will die heroic deaths for their religious beliefs, nationalist ideals, or the sake of humankind. —Artemis-9 "Women in the Night" begins by saying it is "based on case histories from the files of the United Nations Information Offices." It also promises to depict the heroism's and courage of the women of the countries occupied by the Nazis and Japanese during WW II. It takes place over a period of 36 hours in a German Officers' Club in Shanghai. It seems that these Nazis have developed a cosmic death ray that is 100 times more deadly than the Atomic bomb. But the Japanese want the secret to ensure they won't face the same fate as the Germans. The war in Europe is over but this group of Germans are not only hanging on in Shanghai, they have the funds to manage the upkeep of a nightclub. The Japanese guys want this secret real bad, and the Germans tell them to come on over to the Club and they will give it to them. But the German commandant of the Club has no intentions of demonstrating the "weapon" and has some distracting-diversion tactic planned for the Japanese honchos. An undercover American O.S.S. agent also gets involved. (Edited by the author) —Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>

Two hit men, Al (Charles McGraw) and Max (William Conrad), drive into Brentwood, New Jersey, in search of Pete "Swede" Lund (Burt Lancaster), and stake out a diner he frequents, questioning, among others, customer Nick Adams about Swede's whereabouts. After the men leave, Nick races to Swede's boardinghouse room to warn him and is stunned when Swede seems resigned to his fate. Shortly after Nick's departure, Al and Max find Swede waiting in his room and shoot him to death. When it is discovered Swede had a small life insurance policy with Atlantic Casualty, insurance investigator James Riordan (Edmond O'Brien) begins investigating his murder. Jim first questions Nick, who worked with Swede at a filling station, and Nick recalls that Swede stopped coming to work the week before his murder after waiting on a wealthy, middle-aged stranger at the station. Jim then calls on Swede's beneficiary, Mary Ellen "Queenie" Doherty, a cleaning woman at an Atlantic City hotel. Queenie recalls Swede staying at the hotel some six years earlier, when she stopped him from throwing himself out of the window. Upon returning to his office, Jim learns that Swede was a former boxer, whose real name was Ole Anderson, and that after his fight career ended, he served three years in prison for robbery. Jim visits Swede's arresting officer, police lieutenant Sam Lubinsky (Sam Levine), who tells him that he and Swede had grown up together in Philadelphia and that his wife Lilly dated Swede before her marriage. In another narrated flashback, Lilly then recalls her final date with Swede at a party given by Jake "the Rake" in a lavish apartment owned by "Big Jim" Colfax (Albert Dekker), where they met Blinky Franklin and singer Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner), to whom Swede is immediately attracted. Then Sam adds that some time later, while working on a jewelry heist, a tip led him to Jake and Kitty, whom he suspected of wearing a piece of the stolen jewelry. When Sam tried to arrest her, Swede intervened and claimed responsibility for stealing the jewelry, which landed him in prison. Sam asks Jim if he can help with the investigation and later that afternoon, at Swede's burial service, Sam points out Charleston (Vince Barnette), a small-time hood and acquaintance of Swede's, to Jim, who later questions him. Charleston reveals that he and Swede shared a prison cell together and that Swede referred to Kitty as "his girl," and asked Charleston to visit her upon his release: After Swede is released, Charleston is sent by Colfax to summon him to a meeting with Blinky, another thug, Dum Dum, and a mysterious woman. Colfax has planned a payroll heist at a hat company which promises a $250,000 payoff, but the older Charleston finds the risk too great and withdraws, and never sees Swede again. After leaving Charleston, Jim digs up information that Atlantic Casualty insured the hat company and discovers details of the heist. Sam then contacts Jim to inform him that Blinky has been discovered shot and near death. Both men hurry to the hospital, where Blinky, semi-conscious, rambles about the robbery: After the heist, the group was forced to change their meeting place as the scheduled halfway house had burned down unexpectedly. Swede arrives last and after accusing Colfax of trying to cheat him, takes all the money and flees. Back at the hospital after Blinky dies, Jim feels sure the robbery is connected to Swede's murder and stakes out his old room at the boardinghouse. Soon after, Dum Dum Clark (Jack Lambert) rents Swede's old room and begins an elaborate search. Jim breaks in on him and demands to know more details of the robbery, specifically why the meeting place was changed. Dum Dum admits Kitty was the woman involved and that just after midnight the night before the robbery she had told each of them separately about the change, which Swede later claimed he was not told. Jim tells Dum Dum that Swede had run off with Kitty and that later in Atlantic City, Kitty had disappeared with the money. Dum Dum escapes from Jim and despite a police cordon, gets away. Later when Jim receives notification that the halfway house burned down after 2:00 a.m., not midnight, he is certain Colfax and Kitty are behind Swede's murder, but Sam insists Colfax has gone straight. Jim goes to the factory Colfax is now managing, but Colfax claims no knowledge of the robbery or Kitty's whereabouts. Later, however, Jim receives a telephone call from Kitty, suggesting they meet. Driving away from their agreed-upon rendezvous spot, Kitty and Jim are unknowingly trailed by Al and Max to a night club. There, Kitty tells Jim that the night before the robbery, she convinced Swede that the others were double-crossing him, so he would agree to take her away from Colfax. She insists that she left Swede in Atlantic City with the money and pleads with Jim not to involve her further as she is now married and has a good home. Jim demands that she give him proof of Colfax's participation and she agrees, but as they prepare to leave the club, she disappears into the ladies room. Meanwhile at the bar, Al and Max begin to move in on Jim, but are cut off and shot by Sam who is also at the bar. Jim realizes Kitty has escaped and, with Sam and a police backup, heads to Colfax's house. They arrive to a series of gunshots and find Dum Dum dead at the bottom of the stairs and Colfax fatally wounded on the landing with Kitty hovering over him. Jim tells Colfax he had discovered Kitty was his wife and could not testify against him. Colfax admits to having Swede killed, in fear that the other gang members would find him and realize that Colfax and Kitty had double-crossed them and kept all the money. Colfax dies as Kitty pleads for him to declare her innocent.

Shipped to Louisiana, the mummy Kharis from Egypt roams the bayou, tormented by his forbidden love for Princess Ananka. An irrigation project in the rural bayous of Louisiana unearths living mummy Kharis, who was buried in quicksand twenty-five years earlier. —Jeremy Lunt <durlinlunt@acadia.net> Draing of a bayou swamp area in Louisiana is halted when superstitious Cajun workmen learn one of their crew has been mysteriously murdered. They whisper fantastic tales about mummies being buried in the area. Pat Walsh (Addison Richards), boss on the project is annoyed at their fear and furthered angered when Dr. James Halsey (Dennis Moore) of the Scripps Museum, and his associate, Dr. Ilzor Zandaab (Peter Coe) arrive to search for the mummies of Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) and Princess Ananka (Virginia Christine), believed buried in the swamp. Walsh's niece and secretary, Betty (Kay Harding)shows interest in both the story and Halsey. Bulldozers unknowingly uncover the mummies, and that night Dr. Zandaab secretly meets Ragheb (Martin Kosleck, a workman, who takes the scientist to a hidden monastery. There, Kharis lies in a sarcophagus. Zandaab is actually an Egyptian priest and Ragheb is servant. Zandaab revives Kharis with a brew of Tan leaves, Kharis goes in search of his beloved Princess Ananka, whom the sun has transformed into a beautiful young woman. But the transformed Ananka is not all that interested in Kharis. —Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>