The best Stuart Holmes’s mystery movies

Advertising man Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.

In 1900, strong-willed widow Lucy Muir goes to live in Gull Cottage by the British seaside, even though it appears to be haunted. On her very first night she meets the ghost of the crusty former owner, Captain Gregg—and refuses to be scared off. They eventually become friends and allies, after Lucy gets used to the idea of a man's ghost haunting her bedroom.

Gwynplaine, son of Lord Clancharlie, has a permanent smile carved on his face by the King, in revenge for Gwynplaine's father's treachery. Gwynplaine is adopted by a travelling showman and becomes a popular idol. He falls in love with the blind Dea. The king dies, and his evil jester tries to destroy or corrupt Gwynplaine.

Philo is in Vienna working for the US Government to see if Archer Coe is selling aircraft designs to foreign powers. He grabs the plans with Archer's signature, but is captured by police before he can escape. Deported he comes back to America and plans to confront Archer, but Archer is found dead in his locked bedroom with a gun in his hand. While it looks like a suicide, Vance knows better and the coroner finds that Archer has been shot, hit with a blunt instrument and stabbed - making suicide unlikely. But Vance is on the case and is looking to see if government secrets have been sold and who has murdered Coe. This is a remake of "The Kennel Murder Case" using aircraft designs and espionage instead of Chinese porcelain and dog shows.

A Bishop from Australia comes to Perry to ask him to take a case of a woman wrongly accused of manslaughter 22 years before. The case would involve the wealthy Mr. Brownley and the fact that his alleged granddaughter may be an imposter. With that, the Bishop leaves and is clubbed in his hotel room. Soon after, he leaves on a boat and Perry meets the woman - Ida Gilbert. Perry goes to see Mr. Brownley, but gets nowhere. Later that night, Brownley is to meet Ida, but he is shot by a woman who drops Ida's gun. Ida is arrested for the murder of Mr. Brownley and Perry gets involved. Written by Tony Fontana

The dream is unusually vivid: Bank employee Vince Grayson finds himself murdering a man in a sinister octagonal-shaped room lined with mirrors while a mysterious woman breaks into a safe. It is so vivid that Vince suspects it may have really happened. To get the dream off his mind, he goes on a picnic with some relatives. When a thunderstorm forces his party into a nearby mansion, Vince discovers that the bizarre room does exist, and it means nothing but trouble.

A private eye is hired by a mayoral candidate to prevent any sort of adverse publicity. It seems that, somewhere in town, there's a talking blackbird who insists upon saying that the candidate will commit a murder. When the killing occurs, the candidate is implicated, and the detective is off on a hectic pursuit of the incriminating crow and the actual murderer.

Perry and Della are finally married by his old friend, Judge Mary. They plan to go on a honeymoon, but before it can start, Perry is retained by a woman with a gun and $5000.

The third of nine Torchy Blane movies. Angry that police detective Steve McBride (Barton MacLane) is giving preferential treatment to his reporter-fiancée, Torchy Blane (Glenda Farrell), reporters from a rival newspaper plan a fake murder with the idea that Torchy's paper will print the story and look foolish. The tables are turned when the fake murder turns out to be the genuine article.

When Hubert Kingery, a banker, is found shot dead with a gun in his hand, his daughter refuses to believe it is a suicide. With the help of a detective, she hopes to get to the bottom of the case.

A newsman tracks down a phantom killer of murder-trial jurors.

A singer and her apartment manager get mixed up in a creepy Park Avenue murder and find themselves facing danger at every turn.

A notorious counterfeiter passes himself off as a Secret Service agent to Steve and gets him to unwittingly help him bilk the racetrack out of tens of thousands.

The citizens of a tiny Cornish village are tormented during World War II by a headless ghost which is haunting the local tin mine.

Nancy Drew clears her Uncle Matt of murder charges when she exposes the real murderers. She and Ted find themselves in many dangerous positions such as trying to fly an airplane after the pilot parachuted out and being face-to-face with the murderer.

A wealthy family is blackmailed, murder results, and a nurse at the scene of the crime is determined to figure out who-done-it.

Choreographer Bobby Connolly and prolific screenwriter Crane Wilbur teamed up on the direction of Warner Bros.' The Patient in Room 18. Patric Knowles delivers a delightfully comic performance as Lance, an outwardly normal young man obsessed with detective stories. When his obsession threatens to lapse over into lunacy, Lance is sent to the hospital for a nice long rest. It isn't long before he gets mixed up in a genuine murder mystery, using his second-hand knowhow to solve the case. Up-and-coming Ann Sheridan is quite amusing as Lance's nurse and confidante, while the murderer is played by a fellow who is usually cast as the murder victim.