The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on January 29, 2022

For many years film buffs had to put up with very low-quality home video releases of the early British films directed by Alfred Hitchcock from the 1920s and early 1930s. Thankfully in the 21st Century most of these early titles helmed by Hitchcock have been restored and have been given...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on January 23, 2022

I came up with this idea while watching the 2021 DUNE on Blu-ray. The timeline for this would have had to have been the early 1970s. And yes, I'm well aware that Hammer wouldn't have had the budget to film even one chapter of Frank Herbert's novel. But the cast...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on January 22, 2022

SILVER BLAZE (1937) was the last film in which English actor Arthur Wontner portrayed Sherlock Holmes. It is included in The Film Detective's THE SHERLOCK HOLMES VAULT COLLECTION Blu-ray set. Holmes and Watson (Ian "Not that one" Fleming) are invited to pay a visit to old friend Sir Henry Baskervil   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on January 17, 2022

Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the plane crash that took the lives of Carole Lombard and 21 others. Last night I watched one of Lombard's earliest films that she starred in while under contract to Paramount--the 1931 comedy IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE. Norman Foster plays Rodney Martin, the fun-lov   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on January 16, 2022

INTERNATIONAL LADY, released in the fall of 1941, is WWII espionage tale, produced by Edward Small, directed by Tim Whelan, and released by United Artists. The story opens in London during the blitz. Glamorous Norwegian concert pianist/singer Carla Nillsson (Ilona Massey) has attracted the attentio   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on January 15, 2022

THE TRIUMPH OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1935) is the fourth film in which English actor Arthur Wontner starred as Holmes. It is included in THE SHERLOCK HOLMES VAULT COLLECTION from The Film Detective. At the beginning of this film Holmes is moving out of his rooms at Baker Street, and preparing...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on January 8, 2022

The only film in THE SHERLOCK HOLMES VAULT COLLECTION Blu-ray set that does not have Arthur Wontner as Sherlock Holmes is A STUDY IN SCARLET (1933), made at the low-budget Tiffany Studio in Hollywood. Character actor Reginald Owen plays Holmes. Members of a secretive group called the Scarlet Ring a   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on January 5, 2022

Included in The Film Detective's THE SHERLOCK HOLMES VAULT COLLECTION Blu-ray set is the first film starring English actor Arthur Wontner as the Great Detective. SHERLOCK HOLMES' FATAL HOUR (1931) was a British production, released in that country as THE SLEEPING CARDINAL. The story is loosely base   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on January 3, 2022

THE SHERLOCK HOLMES VAULT COLLECTION is a new Blu-ray set from The Film Detective company, and it contains four films featuring the great detective that were made in the 1930s. Three of the films were made in England, and star Arthur Wontner as Holmes: SHERLOCK HOLMES' FATAL HOUR (aka THE...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on January 2, 2022

This is a 1986 television movie based on Edgar Allan Poe's classic tale, with George C. Scott as master criminologist Auguste Dupin. I remember seeing ads for this before its first showing, but for whatever reason I didn't see it. I stumbled upon it recently on the Tubi streaming channel....   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on December 31, 2021

It's the end of another screwed-up year. But hey, I did get to actually attend some baseball games....and I even went to a movie convention, the Monster Bash Conference in Pennsylvania. And I spent plenty of money (as usual) on home video releases of obscure films. So it's time for...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on December 25, 2021

BEAT GIRL (released in the U.S. under the title WILD FOR KICKS) is a 1960 British film concerning teenage rebellion and rock and roll music. It is of interest to fans of English fantastic films due to the cast, which includes Christopher Lee, Oliver Reed, Gillian Hills (DEMONS OF THE...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on December 19, 2021

THE FROZEN DEAD is a 1966 British horror film, written and directed by Herbert J. Leder. It's a title I finally caught up with the other day, after seeing various stills from it in books and magazines over the years. The movie has many plot elements that are ripe with...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on December 18, 2021

THE INVISIBLE MENACE (1938) is one of a group of films Boris Karloff made under a contract with Warner Bros. in the late 1930s. With horror movies temporarily on the wane, Warners gave Karloff character actor parts. THE INVISIBLE MENACE may sound like an imaginative thriller, but it's actually an   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on December 12, 2021

THE MUTATIONS, filmed in 1972 and released in 1974, is a very weird British horror film that brings to mind the crazy low-budget thriller movies made in the 1940s and 50s. I saw it for the first time on the Xfinity TCM app. A quietly sinister professor named Nolter (Donald...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on December 6, 2021

Last week, I had a meeting with a financial advisor who works at my bank. He asked me about my hobbies and interests, and I told how much of a film buff I was. He mentioned that on Halloween he had screened THE DYBBUK, a movie I was aware of...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on December 5, 2021

Universal's 1935 feature THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD is based on an unfinished work by Charles Dickens (the author died while in the middle of writing it). It contains a number of elements familiar to classic Universal horror, but it is a mystery melodrama, with a climax whipped up by...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on December 4, 2021

THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK (1946) was made toward the end of what is called Universal's "Silver Age" of thrillers and chillers. The movie is not a sequel to the studio's Sherlock Holmes entry THE SPIDER WOMAN, despite having the same star, Gale Sondergaard. A young woman named Jean (Brenda...   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on November 26, 2021

Universal loves to constantly release home video editions of their most famous classics such as FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA, but they seem to have little interest in their more obscure titles. Thankfully companies like Kino Lorber have taken up the slack. Kino has just put out SECRET OF THE BLUE ROOM,   read more

The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog Posted by Dan Day, Jr. on November 25, 2021

Since this is Thanksgiving morning, I might as well present one of the biggest (literally and figuratively) cinematic turkeys of all: THE GIANT CLAW (1957).This is by far the most notorious film included in Arrow Video's COLD WAR CREATURES: FOUR FILMS FROM SAM KATZMAN Blu-ray set. Its notoriety com   read more