Jean Brooks
Actor · 1915 – 1963 · Houston, Texas, USA
Fluent in Spanish, Jean Brooks began professionally by singing with Enric Madriguera and Orchestra in New York. She had a small role in the New York City-filmed The Crime of Doctor Crespi (1935) and the second lead in a Broadway play, "Name Your Poison" (1938), with Lenore Ulric, all under her real name of Jeanne Kelly. She was signed by an independent film production company that had gone under by the time she got to Hollywood. She spent several years at Universal as a leading lady in "B" pictures, including several Johnny Mack Brown westerns, but her option was dropped in late 1941. By this time she had married writer (later director) Richard Brooks and, with a certain Broadway hoofer having just signed at MGM, dropped the Kelly and became Jean Brooks. She signed with RKO, where film buffs know her for her three appearances for cult producer Val Lewton, particularly her stunning performance as a haunted devil worshiper in The Seventh Victim (1943). Her clipped delivery and intense, forceful acting style made her a promising bet for stardom, but RKO lost interest in her by mid-'44 and her roles got gradually smaller until she was dropped in 1946. She and Brooks divorced (his later studio biographies omitted her name as one of his ex-wives). For many years she was listed as a "Lost Player" championed in several magazine articles by writer Doug McClelland. She was eventually located in San Francisco, where she had moved after her film career petered out, and was employed as a classified ad solicitor on the "San Francisco Examiner" newspaper. She had married a printer called Leddy. Her death at the Kaiser Hospital in Richmond, California, in 1963 was due to nutritional problems caused by alcoholism, a sad ending for a stylish and talented performer who didn't get the breaks she deserved, both personally and professionally. Date of Death 25 November 1963, Richmond, California (extreme malnutrition & alcoholism)
Movies24
Movie6.3HorrorScience FictionThe owner of a coal mining operation, falsely imprisoned for fratricide, takes a drug to make him invisible, despite its side effect: gradual madness.
The Invisible Man Returns
1940 · 143 votes
Movie6.8ComedyMusicPetty con artists Slicker Smith and Herbie Brown mistakenly join the Army evading the cops. The cop chasing them winds up as their drill instructor. A rich young man and his former working class chauffeur are not only in the same unit, they're vying for a pretty girl who seems attracted to both.
Buck Privates
1941 · 78 votes
Movie6.8ActionAdventureSecond serial featuring The Green Hornet and Kato.
Movie5.8Science FictionActionA mysterious plague, the Purple Death, ravages the earth. Dr. Zarkov, investigating in his spaceship, finds a ship from planet Mongo seeding the atmosphere with dust. Sure enough, Ming the Merciless is up to his old tricks. So it's back to Mongo for Flash, Dale, and Zarkov.
Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe
1940 · 25 votes
Movie6.0WesternIn the Dakotas during the days of the Great Gold Boom, brothers Jim and Bob Holliday are bumping heads over the affections of pretty Anne Grayson. While all this is going on, Wild Bill Hickok does his best to neutralize the local criminal element-and to fend off the romantic overtures of boisterous Calamity Jane.
Badlands of Dakota
1941 · 10 votes
Movie6.4HorrorMysteryAfter young Mary Gibson discovers that her older sister Jacqueline has disappeared, she leaves her boarding school and heads to New York City to track down her sibling. But Mary gets drawn deeper into the mystery.
The Seventh Victim
1943 · 162 votes
Movie6.3MysteryCrimeA cab driver nearly hits a man with amnesia, then helps him unravel his past, only to discover he's a murder suspect as she falls for him.
Two O'Clock Courage
1945 · 28 votes
Movie6.8ActionWesternThe Saturday matinee crowd got two cowboy stars for the price of one in this lavishly budgeted western serial starring former singing cowboy Dick Foran and Buck Jones. The latter contributed deadpan humor to the proceedings, making Jones perhaps the highest paid B-western comedy relief in history. The two heroes defend the Death Valley borax miners from an outlaw gang headed by Wolf Reade. An extraordinarily strong cast -- for a serial, at least -- supported the stars, headed by Charles Bickford as Reade, Leo Carillo, Lon Chaney, Jr., and silent screen star Monte Blue. Leading lady Jeanne Kelly later changed her name to Jean Brooks and starred in the atmospheric RKO thriller The Seventh Victim (1943). Universal claimed to have spent $1 million on this serial and made sure to get their money's worth by endlessly recycling the action footage in serials and B-westerns for years to come.
Riders of Death Valley
1941 · 2 votes
Movie6.2CrimeMysterySuave amateur detective Tom Lawrence--aka Michael Arlen's literary hero The Falcon--arrives in Hollywood for some rest and relaxation, only to find himself involved in the murder of a movie actor. There's no shortage of suspects: the costume designer to whom he was married, a tyrannical director, a beautiful young French starlet, a Shakespeare-quoting producer, even a New York gangster. Helping The Falcon solve the crime is a cute, wise-cracking cab driver and a pair of bumbling cops.
The Falcon in Hollywood
1944 · 14 votes
Movie5.4AdventureCrimeA society sleuth sets out on the trail of a society matron's lost jewels.
The Falcon's Alibi
1946 · 12 votes
Movie6.1CrimeMysteryTwo industrialists disappear from an airplane while the plane is in the air. Also missing is $100,000. The Falcon investigates and discovers a plot against the government.
The Falcon in Danger
1943 · 13 votes
Movie6.5HorrorMysteryWhen a leopard escapes during a publicity stunt, it triggers a series of murders.
The Leopard Man
1943 · 132 votes
Movie5.1CrimeHorrorA crazed scientist invents a serum that induces a catatonic state in anyone who gets the injection. He uses the serum to paralyze his enemies, in order to bury them alive.
The Crime of Doctor Crespi
1935 · 14 votes
Movie5.6WarRomanceA pilot of a B 29 meets Louise Anderson, a singer in a New York nightclub. He falls in love with her, but he had to leave next day for action in the Pacific. He lets paint her picture on his bomber, the "Bamboo Blonde" and becomes a hero with his crew sinking a Japanese battleship and shooting down a Japanese fighter wing. Back in New York, he leaves his fiancée and engages him to Louise.
The Bamboo Blonde
1946 · 5 votes
Movie6.8CrimeMysteryThe Falcon is called to a young woman's school to investigate a murder. When he arrives, another victim is discovered.
The Falcon and the Co-Eds
1943 · 20 votes
Movie5.4DramaOn Christmas Eve in the Spanish quarter of L.A. police try to arrest a couple running a shady floor show. Hiding in a church, the young woman finds an abandoned baby and uses it as cover to escape capture.
Miracle on Main Street
1939 · 19 votes
Movie7.0HorrorA sailor, known as the Adventurer, searching for a lost American explorer discovers him being held hostage on a remote island in the South Sea. The man is held captive by the island's natives, who have placed him under a voodoo spell known as "obeah.
Obeah
1935 · 1 votes
Movie7.0ComedyAdventureDetectives Dick Williams and Andy McAllister find themselves trying to solve several crimes at an isolated mentally-ill hospital, where the patients range from slightly daffy to criminally insane, and they don't know which is which. A gang is out to steal a fortune inherited by one of the patients and, before Dick and Andy solve the case, several patients are transferred to the cemetery. And 'tiddlie-winks" are indeed involved.
A Dangerous Game
1941 · 3 votes
Movie6.2ActionThrillerQuality was seldom a consideration in the low-budget films of PRC Studios; still, the company was a welcome harbor for character actors who aspired to occasional leading roles. In Boss of Big Town, veteran supporting player John Litel is top-billed as crusading city market official Michael Lynn. When a criminal gang muscles in on the local food distribution markets, Lynn vows to throw the rascals out. First, however, he pretends to join the villains as a paid government stooge, the better to find out the identity of the "Mister Big" behind the distribution racket. The exposure of the "mystery villain" will come as a shock to fans of the 1927 Cecil B. DeMille epic The King of Kings--but not to dyed-in-the-wool movie buffs.
The Boss of Big Town
1942 · 6 votes
Movie5.0CrimeMysteryA lawyer tries to clear his wife's lover of murder charges.
A Night of Adventure
1944 · 11 votes
Movie7.0RomanceAdventureA secretary sends a coded plea for help in her monthly report; two detectives investigate and find out that men are jailed on phony charges, forced to work in oil fields and then murdered if they try to escape.
The Devil's Pipeline
1940 · 2 votes
Movie4.0DramaThrillerDuring WW2 six allied nations women at Shanghai University are arrested by the Germans accused of killing a German officer and forced to entertain the Japanese.
Women in the Night
1948 · 9 votes
Movie5.1DramaIn this Alaskan adventure, a surgeon becomes a pilot after he messes up an operation. Unfortunately, he crashes during a storm and finds himself cared for by a lovely woman. He gets a chance to reclaim his self-esteem when her son suddenly needs the same operation the surgeon botched.
Klondike Fury
1942 · 9 votes
Movie5.8WesternBolton's men blow up the wagon carrying the mine payroll and Marshal Crash Corrigan is supposedly killed in the explosion. A man finds his badge and gives it to Bolton. Thinking Crash dead, Bolton gives the badge away and it ends up with the Sheriff. Crash is OK and the Range Busters know Bolton is the head of the gang but that he gets his orders from someone else and that is the man they want.
Boot Hill Bandits
1942 · 6 votes