"City of the Dead" (1960)

An eerie little chiller from the early 1960's that looks ahead to other genre fare of that decade like "Dark Shadows" and "Rosemary's Baby". A young co-ed (Venetia Stevenson) is doing her term paper on the New England witchcraft of the 17th Century. Her professor (Christopher Lee) suggests she visit his hometown and stay at the inn of an old friend. Well, when the professor is Christopher Lee you don't have to be a genius to see that he's not sending her to a lovely tea social at the local library. This town is Spooky City. And the inn's proprietress (Patricia Jessel) is even creepier. Maybe there's a connection to this town and a coven of witches way back when,  but I'll avoid any spoilers. Clearly the whole picture was done on a shoestring budget but that works to it's advantage. The entire town is created with sets, the requisite fog, and shadows. Director John Moxey keeps it all atmospheric with some well-timed scares along the way. There are even some parallels to Hitchcock's "Psycho" that debuted the same year. A worthwhile gem to discover, even better you can see it on YouTube here.

"42nd Street" (1933)

This backstage musical trots out every hoary cliché in the book, except this is the movie that invented all those clichés in the first place. The insanely driven director (Warner Baxter) who's teetering on killing himself from overwork, will his latest show push him over the edge? The wise cracking chorinnes (Una Merkel and Ginger Rogers) struggling to make ends meet who'll take any man or bit part, whichever comes first. And, best of all,  the naive ingenue (Ruby Keeler) fresh off the farm who has to take the lead on opening night when the aging star (Bebe Daniels) breaks her ankle. Even tho the pace and dialog are snappy with that sassy New York patois Warner Brothers made famous in gangster pictures, it's really the knockout musical numbers, staged by choreographic whiz Busby Berkely that make this a groundbreaking film. It's almost a misnomer to call what Berkeley does here choreography, he's basically using human bodies to create graphic shapes that swirl and undulate, surely groundbreaking for it's time. Yes, the story is all cornball, and Keeler's acting is wince causing, but it's still fun Hollywood history and a must see.