Old-Time Crime

Old-Time Crime is a section that’s devoted to movies from the Thirties and Forties that have a murder mystery or crime theme to them, and which are largely forgotten or unknown in terms of their exposure to modern audiences. These are movies that were often made on very small budgets by the likes of Monogram, Producers Releasing Corporation, or Republic Pictures, and which were designed to be the support feature on a double bill, or the main feature in cinemas showing second-run movies. They were made cheaply and quickly, and often ran between sixty and seventy minutes in length. There is also the assumption that because they were cheaply and quickly made, that they suffered in terms of quality, but this isn’t always true. Hopefully, the movies included in this section will encourage readers of, and/or visitors to, thedullwoodexperiment to revisit, or investigate further, the B-movie crime genre, and the often surprising delights that it has to offer.