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Indie producer Harry Cohn, brother Jack and their associate Joe Brandt created the CBC Film Sales Company in 1918. And on Jan. 10, 1924, the trio formed the Poverty Row studio, Columbia Pictures. According to Enclyclopedia.com, by the mid-20s “Cohn had gained reputation as one of the industry’s toughest businessmen.” That’s putting it mildly.

Though “B” movies and series such as The Three Stooges, “Blondie” and “The Lone Wolf” were the bread and butter of the studio, Cohn slowly attracted top talent and directors and turned such newcomers as Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, William Holden and Kim Novak into stars.

Frank Capra changed the fortunes of the studio. Signing with Columbia in 1928, he made 25 films for Columbia. His optimistic, common man movies attracted critics and audiences alike during the Depression. His 1934 screwball comedy “It Happened One Night,” penned by Robert Riskin and starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, swept the Oscars winning five.

In a little booth in an otherwise deserted radio station, DJ Candy (Paula Brasca) takes her listeners through the night. It's quiet, the lights are low and the ghosts of other films flit by. Viewers might think of 2020’s punchy Ten Minutes To Midnight or last year’s multi-award winning short The Lone Wolf. There are similarities to both, though this scenario is neither as incisive nor as entertaining. Its primary function is as a wraparound for a mixed bunch of short films on horror related themes. Listeners call the station to share their scary stories. Candy is disinclined to give them much credence; the danger is that viewers will agree with her.

The film’s scariest scene comes at the very start of the first short: the very real nightmare of a woman spilling coffee on her laptop. It’s one moment in a life full of small aggravations.

Randy Martin, known as the “Lone Wolf” from the former DIY Network reality series Texas Flip N Move, died Wednesday at his home of liver cancer. He was 65.

His death was announced on his official Facebook page.

Martin’s co-stars from Texas Flip N Move, the Snow Sisters, issued a statement: “We are broken hearted over The Lone Wolf Randy Martin who passed away early this morning. Please pray for his wife and family as they navigate this difficult time. You will be missed.”

Texas Flip N Move started on the DIY Network in 2014. Martin made regular appearances in its first season and was heavily featured as a main cast member through 2017.

Martin is survived by his wife, Judy; and his children and grandchildren.

Mickey Spillane grabbed his position in the pop culture pantheon much like his iconic creation, private eye Mike Hammer, made his way through a case: through a sort of literary brute force, blasting away with heavy doses of graphic violence, steamy sex, and a style which reviewers often considered the prose version of a blunt object.

As a mystery writer, Spillane wasn’t as clever as Evan Hunter, nor as introspective as late career Ross MacDonald, nor did he have the insider’s street savvy of George V. Higgins, or the prose command of Raymond Chandler. Read today, some of his stuff seems so familiar and stale and excessive it borders on camp. But, whatever one’s qualitative judgment on Spillane and his canon, there’s no doubt his impact on the mystery genre – and the private eye tale in particular – was both massive and indelible, reaching beyond the printed...

By Harris Lentz, III

Adele Mara was an actress in films in the 1940s and 1950s, and was John Wayne’s leading lady in the films Wake of the Red Witch and Sands of Iwo Jima. She also starred in the 1945 Republic horror film The Vampire’s Ghost with John Abbott and Peggy Stewart, and The Catman of Paris (1946) with Carl Esmond.

She was born Adelaide Delgado in Highland Park, Michigan, on April 28, 1923. She began her career in her teens as a singer and dancer with Xavier Cugat and His Orchestra in Detroit. She traveled to New York with Cugat, where she signed a contract with Columbia Pictures in 1942. She appeared in a handful of films over the next several years including Alias Boston Blackie (1942) with Chester Morris, Vengeance of the West (1942) with Tex Ritter, and Crime Doctor (1943) with Warner Baxter. She subsequently signed with Republic Studios, and continued her...