The Unguarded Hour (1936)

Director
Sam Wood

Main cast
Loretta Young; Franchot Tone; Lewis Stone; Roland Young; Jessie Ralph

Genres
Crime

Description
An ambitious prosecuting attorney seems guilty of strangling his mistress; only his blackmailed wife knows for sure.


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Harry Mitchell is a successful Los Angeles manufacturer whose wife is running for city council. His life is turned upside down when three blackmailers confront him with a video tape of him with his young mistress and demand $100,000. Fearing that the story will hurt his wife's political campaign if he goes to the police, Harry pretends that he will pay the men, but does not follow through.
Alice's boyfriend Frank is a Scotland Yard detective who seems more interested in police work than in her. When she agrees to go out with another man, he attacks her and she defends herself and kills him. When the body is discovered, Frank is assigned to the case. He quickly discovers that Alice is the killer, but so has someone else, and they are threatening blackmail.
Daryl Zero is a private investigator. Along with his assistant, Steve Arlo he solves impossible crimes and puzzles. Though a master investigator, when he is not working, Zero doesn't know what to do with himself. He has no social skills, writes bad music, and drives Arlo crazy. In his latest case, Zero must find out who is blackmailing a rich executive, and when his client won't tell him, why.
Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett) devises a cunning plan to snare a ruthless blackmailer who's been causing misery throughout London. And this time, even his loyal sidekick Dr. Watson finds the Baker Street sleuth's campaign a little strange. Based on Arthur Conan Doyle's characters, this film features a softened version of Holmes who -- zounds! -- falls in love.
TV writer Elliott Nash buries a blackmailer under the new gazebo in his suburban backyard. But the nervous man can't let the body rest there.
Clue finds six colorful dinner guests gathered at the mansion of their host, Mr. Boddy -- who turns up dead after his secret is exposed: He was blackmailing all of them. With the killer among them, the guests and Boddy's chatty butler must suss out the culprit before the body count rises.
A provincial boy related to a Shanghai crime family is recruited by his uncle into cosmopolitan Shanghai in the 1930s to be a servant to a ganglord's mistress.
Private Detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a rich family. Before the complex case is over, he's seen murder, blackmail, and what might be love.
Fifth Jerry Cotton Movie. A rich capitalist is blackmailed and threatened with the murder of his daughter. There's a terrific scene where gangsters bust in and kidnap a young woman.
Los Angeles private-eye Philip Marlowe is trying to locate the brother of his new client, a woman named Orfamay Quest. The trail leads to two men who deny any knowledge of the brother's existence. Both are soon killed by an ice pick, so Marlowe deduces that there's much more to this than a simple missing-person case. Marlowe's path crosses that of a blackmailed movie star, Mavis Wald, and her friend, exotic dancer Delores. A mobster sends karate expert Winslow Wong to bust up Marlowe's office and warn him off the case, while Lieutenant French also cautions the detective to stay out of the police's way.
Nelson Crowe is a CIA operative under the thumb of the Company for a disputed delivery of $50,000 in gold. They blackmail him into working for the Grimes Organization, which is set up as a private company for hire, to blackmail prominent individuals. Crowe, working with Margaret Wells (another former Covert Operations operative), blackmails and bribes a State Supreme Court judge, but the deal sours. One of Crowe's co-workers, Tod Stapp, discovers Crowe's current CIA involvement in a plot to overthrow Grimes, and blackmails him to be cut in on the deal. More blackmail occurs as Wells manipulates Crowe to kill Grimes, then the CIA uses that discovery to blackmail Wells into killing Crowe. Who can you trust???
Handsome dentist Herve Dandieu, temporarily separated from his new, delectable wife Virginie by a lovers' tiff, is picked up by sexy dance teacher Anita Flores...object blackmail. Sensing trouble, Virginie follows him to the dance school, only to find him circumstantially incriminated in murder. Soon, the school has a gorgeous new instructress, whose slightly scatterbrained attempts to clear her husband confuse both police and suspects...and bring potential danger.
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Bruno, a sadistic criminal, wants clever con man Leo out of the way. Leo and his equally clever wife, Lily, are up to something. So too is Julius: he hires Leo to kill Gloria, Julius's wife. Leo does it, but then Julius shows up with the murder on tape, saying Gloria isn't his wife - it's blackmail. Leo's bookie, Troy, is also closing in, wanting to be paid. Bruno and Lily as well as Bruno and Julius have their own scams running, and Leo is their target. Maybe Leo can get Troy off his back, avoid Moose (Bruno's huge enforcer), send Gloria's corpse out of England, turn the tables on Bruno's murderous brother Caspar, and outfox Lily. Or is Lily his fox? It's a three-ring circus.
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A frustrated, unemployed teacher joins forces with a scammer and his girlfriend in a blackmailing scheme.
Three couples are staying at a lakeside cottage with their children. They want them to prepare intensely for a prestigious high school's entrance exam with the help of a private tutor. One night, one of the wives confesses to her husband that she has killed his mistress...
Lew is a small time loser with a troubled past and a very big secret. Overhearing a couple plan a kidnapping, Lew is tempted to come up with a scheme of his own. He decides to get to the victim first and then blackmail the real criminals. His plan soon spins out of control.
An unscrupulous private investigator with a penchant for blackmail is found dead in a car and the leading suspect is Carole Landis, the daughter of a mayoral candidate. With the election just weeks away, the press, here depicted as shadowy and ruthless, will do anything to get a juicy story. They muscle the medical officer into switching the corpse with another body when it becomes clear that Carole couldn't have been the murderer. Detective Sam Carson must find a way to clean up the mess and save the girl he's beginning to fall for.
Richter Boudreau is on a bad streak: Languishing in the shadow of his celebrity mother, he loses his job as a film critic for the town paper, and now he's been approached with a dangerous proposition that ultimately leads to blackmail. Richter's friend Ronnie ropes him into a scheme to steal the inheritance of his wife, Vicky.
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When her great aunt dies famed horror hostess Elvira heads for the uptight new England town to Falwell to claim her inheritance of a haunted house a witches cookbook and a punk rock poodle. But once the stuffy locals get an eyeful of the scream queens ample assets all hell busts out & breaks loose.
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