All posts by HBLibrarian

Mother sleeps on late child’s grave

Hello–

I am trying to track down a movie that was shown on television in the mid 1980s or thereabouts. It might be a theatrical release or a made-for-television movie. It is in color and is English. It is probably set in the American Civil War era; some of the characters wear uniforms that look like that, at least.

I don’t know the overall plot, but in the movie, some soldiers come upon a farm stead that is near some woods. They stay there for a while. A woman lives there, and her child has recently died and was buried on a hill between the house and the woods, near a large tree. Every night the mother leaves her house and sleeps on (or next to?) the grave. The soldiers are surprised by this behavior.

It may be that Kris Kristofferson played one of the soldiers, but I can’t find anything that seems to be a match in his filmography. Maybe it’s just someone who looks kind of like him.

movie with vampire children

Hello. I am trying to track down a movie that was probably made in the mid to late seventies, or perhaps a bit later. It is set in the Victorian time frame, probably in England. It aired on television in America in the early 1980s.

The plot is something along the lines of this: There is a man who fosters children with the intent of sacrificing them–perhaps in some sort of evil ritual, to gain riches or immortality. This man lives in a mansion and has a few servants. He takes in one child at a time, and it is implied that the previous children have run away.

He takes in a boy, perhaps 10 years old. The boy is enjoying his new life, but then vampire children keep appearing to him and he is terrified! The vampire children have long pointed fingernails, pale skin, and dark circles around their eyes. By some trick of costuming, make-up, or camera, the children appear to be filmed black-and-white although the rest of the movie is in color. The housekeeper tries to tell him it is his imagination. The boy finally figures out they are trying to warn him to run away, and he manages to barely escaped being sacrificed. Because he is not killed, the man becomes weak and the vampire children are able to destroy him.

This movie has a similar production feel and color palette as the older Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes TV show that was made in the 1980s, although it was made before that.

Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you.

Western Movie with a fake gun duel

I am trying to find a movie that is set in the American old west. It is probably from the 70s and might have been a TV movie.

It is NOT “My Name is Nobody.”

Two older gunslingers have some sort of an issue but also respect each other a great deal. They are friends with a saloon girl/bar maid type woman. Somehow, it is decided they must duel. They face each other in the middle of a dusty, old timey street and one shoots the other, who falls over as if dead. As the townspeople move to help the fallen gunman, the other calls out and tells them to leave him alone. The survivor alone puts the man in the back of a wagon and drives off to bury him someplace isolated, presumably to bury him. The woman friend accompanies him. However, after their a safe distance from town, the “dead” man rises from the back and says something that makes them all laugh. I think that’s the end of the movie.

Any and all suggestions welcomed!

Black and White film about Female Vampire

Hello All,

I am hoping you can help me find a movie that probably was made in the 1980s. It was black and white. It may have been an art film, or perhaps even a sophisticated student film. I don’t think it was made with a very large budget.

The plot was something like this: a young white woman who lives in a large city keeps hearing rumors of a woman vampire. She tried to arrange to meet her at parties, or clubs, but eventually the vampire seeks her out. The vampire is a black, with a natural hair style, and very old, but looks to be no older than 30. She may be Egyptian.

They have a conversation where the young woman seems to interview her, as if she is a reporter or something–and maybe she is, or perhaps a student–and the vampire gives her some very thought provoking answers.

I don’t know how the movie ends. I do know it was a not a bloody movie.

Thank you.

Vigilantes during 1980’s Farm Crisis

Hello: I am looking for a movie that is set during the U.S. farm crisis of the 1980s. It was probably made in the late ’80s. I may be combining memories from more than one movie, because the appearance of the main character is different in my memories.

An older teenage boy/young man (Caucasian, probably blond) is part of a working farm, which has been in his family for generations. He intends to continue working the farm, but has to leave for a while–the army? jail? I’m not sure why–and while he’s gone the farm is foreclosed on. The bank takes everything. His father is devastated and perhaps kills himself, or maybe just drinks a lot. These foreclosures are happening throughout their community, and all over the Midwest, and the young man becomes very angry.

The young man decides that the banks who own the farm mortgages are the true villains, so he packs his bags, grabs his (probably underage, still in high school) girlfriend, and they start robbing banks. Only, while they do take money, what they’re really after are all the mortgage records! They want to destroy all the records so that no more farms will be foreclosed, and they need to do it quickly while the records are stored on paper, not electronically, so they can be completely wiped out.

I think they burst into banks with guns ablaze, scaring the wits out of the bank employees, and then take some money. Then they pour some gasoline (or something) all over the papers, which they set on fire before running off. They don’t hurt anyone until someone is accidentally shot.

Then a manhunt occurs, and I think they both die.

Any suggestions are appreciated!

People fighting on a boat

Hello. I could use some help identifying this movie. It is probably from the last 10 to 15 years, American, in color and in English.

It is about a group of about six friends in their late 20s to early 30s who get together to take a vacation on a boat–probably a sailing type. (I don’t know anything about boats, sorry.) They are somewhere warm, like maybe the Caribbean, because they wear shorts and swim suits a lot. At least one of the friends–I think a man–brings a stranger along as his companion. I think the stranger is a beautiful woman who doesn’t speak much English.

Tensions raise, things get heated, alcohol is involved, and somehow they decided to leave a man stranded on an island. There is a fight and I think maybe he kills someone by hitting him with an oar from the rowboat.  Maybe there are threats made with a flare gun? This whole part is really vague to me.

There is what appears to be the rusted frame of an old ship near the island–very large, like an old cruise ship. The last scene shows some people starring out into the sea while sitting on that frame–it may have been the man who was stranded and the woman who doesn’t speak English.

I could have sworn that Donal Logue was in it but I went through his movies and didn’t see anything that looked like it was set at sea.

Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks!

Teacher Attacked in her Classroom

Hello friends. I need help identifying another movie. This may have been a made-for-tv movie. It aired on television in the late 70s or early 80s. Judging by the clothes people wear, it is set on the late 60s to mid 70s.

The movie is centered on a teacher at a high school. She is Caucasian with brown wavy hair about shoulder length. She is well liked by most of the students, but it is a rough high school with gang/drug/other problems so the school installs alarms in all the class rooms. The alarm is a large red button mounted on the wall. The teachers can hit the button, and it rings in the office so people can come to the classroom and help.

One day, some students are rough housing and one boy is pushed into the button. He is sent to the office to tell them it’s a false alarm, and meets the office people running to help in the hallway.

A short time after—a few days, perhaps, but I don’t know the time frame—the teacher is alone in her classroom when a rough looking young man (possibly a student?) comes in and starts to attack her. She pushes the button, but no one in the office hears because a piece of equipment (maybe a mimeograph machine?) is making a lot of noise. When the machine stops and they notice the alarm, they think it might be another false alarm. Only one woman (tall, slender, African American woman, short hair) goes to see what the problem is. She meets the teacher in the hallway, obviously hurt and her clothing in disarray. It is implied that the teacher was beaten and raped.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions. I appreciate all guesses—every title I rule out narrows the field of possibilities!

 

Woman marries her cousin, then he’s murdered.

I am trying to find a movie that is older, probably from the 1930s or 40s. It is black and white, and in English, and probably British.

To the best of my memory, this is the plot:

A young, beautiful brunette woman travels to a large manor house owned by her recently deceased uncle. She meets a man there who has a strong family resemblance to her uncle, and she assumes he is her cousin. It turns out he is not her cousin, but the man who takes care of the grounds who was raised by her uncle.

The groundskeeper is a man with pale skin, dark hair, and dark, expressive eyes. He is angry and somewhat impulsive. He is most likely her uncle’s love child. Part of the plot is this man trying to prove that he is a legitimate heir to the uncle, such as trying to find a record of a “secret marriage” between the uncle and the man’s mother. The groundskeeper falls in love with the woman.

The woman finds herself attracted to the groundskeeper, but agrees to marry her actual cousin (personally, ICK! but I know people used to do it a lot), the heir to her uncle’s estate, and now the Lord of the manor. He is kind to her and while she doesn’t feel passion for him, she respects him. He participates in aristocratic-type activities, such as fox hunting. They are married and she becomes the Lady of the manor.

Then, not too long after, some gypsies arrive at the estate and …stuff happens, maybe a thunderstorm?… and the cousin/husband is murdered! The woman sees the murderer wearing a bandana. The bandana is similar to one that the groundskeeper wears. There may be some sort of a misunderstanding, where the groundskeeper felt the woman wanted her husband dead, but I can’t say that for sure. She does truly mourn him, though.

The groundkeeper is accused of the murder and put on trial. The woman testifies about the bandanas. I think she’s not sure if the groundskeeper killed her husband or if the gypsies did, but she feels very sad and guilty for being attracted to the groundskeeper. It is revealed she is pregnant, because she is allowed to sit while testifying (instead of standing on the witness platform) because of her “delicate condition. “

I don’t know how the movie ends or who any of the actors were. I thought the man playing the cousin/husband was Leslie Howard, but I’ve been through his movies and didn’t find anything that resembled this. No offense to Mr. Howard or his fans, but he was kind of a generic looking actor for the time, and I could easily be mistaking him for someone else. Any suggestions are welcome.

Teenage Girl Kidnapped; Used to Procure Others

I am trying to track down a movie about a teenage girl who is kidnapped by a man who is a serial rapist and murderer. It is in American English, in color, and most likely was made in the late 1970s or early 80s. This might be a made-for-TV movie. I don’t know any of the actors.

There is an evil man who habitually kidnaps, tortures, rapes and kills teenage girls. He may have gotten some of them from shopping malls or parking structures. He is Caucasian and seems very “normal” looking. He knows the police are after him, so he moves around a lot and sometimes changes his appearance by growing or shaving his facial hair. He might wear a jean jacket or navy “trucker” jacket.

He kidnaps a Caucasian girl with shoulder length brown hair, and takes her somewhere private to rape her. However–and this is a big point in the movie–this particular girl had been previously sexually abused, so she does not respond to this rape as his other victims have. She “shuts down” during the assault, so he doesn’t get the desired thrill from it and thus he doesn’t kill her. He keeps her alive, trusting her enough to let her do some driving, and eventually uses her to help him procure another girl for him to rape and kill.

He picks out a girl with blonde curly hair, so the first girl befriends her, and then he kidnaps her too. But the first girl begs him not to kill the blonde girl, so instead he ties her tightly and dumps her in a ditch somewhere. The blonde girl is able to crawl to safety, attracting the attention of some people at a gas station (or someplace public). It’s good she did, because the man freaks out and makes the first girl go back so he can kill the blonde girl. But she’s already escaped–whew!

The scenes of the man and the brunette girl are interspersed with a female detective who is trying to solve the case, and another female she’s working with, who is perhaps a criminal profiler or a psychologist. It’s possible both the women are detectives, though, and the one is simply very good at understanding the motivations of evil people.

Eventually the man is caught, but I don’t know how. The first girl is reunited with her family at the end.

If you have any idea about what this movie could be, please let me know your guesses. Any and all suggestions are welcome! Thank you!

Kidnapped children being sacrified

Hello all. I hope someone can help me track down this movie memory.

This movie was probably made in the 1950s or 60s. It was most likely in color, and used American English. It aired on television in the late 1960s and/or early 70s, more than once, but I don’t know how often or what time of year. I suspect this is one of those Old Testament biblical epic style movies (like “The Ten Commandments”) but it may be one of those dystopian fantasy-based movies (like “Conan the Barbarian.”) It is not either of those movies; it is also not “Beastmaster,” ”Krull,” “The Story of Ruth, “or “Noah’s Ark.” (Some of those are from the wrong time period, but they are past suggestions so I’m including them for the sake of completeness.)

In this movie, there is a group of oppressed people who wander about in a desert landscape. They live peacefully, herding animals and such, but one day they are attacked and a bunch of their children are stolen by some bad guys who live in a city. Perhaps all the children are stolen.

A group of good, strong fighting warrior men are gathered to try to recover the children. They steal clothes (or uniforms) so they look like city dwellers and infiltrate the city. They discover the children are being held at some temple and are being scarified to a pagan god, or an idol, or something like that. They have some people inside the city who help them a little bit—mostly by helping them hide better so the bad guys don’t recognize them.

Two of the men are at a bar/inn/gathering place with food, trying to gather information so they can sneak in the temple, when a city man rushes in. He is very excited and waving around a bloodstained dress. He gleefully tells everyone that he was allowed to kill one of the captive children himself. One of the warrior men recognizes the dress as his little sister’s, and realizes she is already dead. He starts to become very upset and his companion must get him out of the bar quickly before anyone there realizes what is going on.

There may have been a lady who helped them who wore a red head scarf. However, this memory might be from another movie.

I welcome all suggestions. Thank you very much.

Coming-of-age while looking for submarines

I hope someone will recognize this movie and help me find it. It is in American English, and probably came out in the late 80s or early 90s.

This movie is set in America, along the east coast (probably more north-east) during WWII. There is a group of boys, about upper grade school to middle school age, who have taken it upon themselves to watch for enemy submarines in their free time. They spend a lot of time at the beach, even in cold weather, hoping to be the first to see a Nazi submarine and become heroes. They also talk about baseball, and girls, and sex, and all those kinds of things.

One of the boys has dark hair and wears a “newsboy” cap all the time. He might be the central boy in the story.

This movie is not “Brighton Beach Memoirs” or “I’ll Remember April.”

Any suggestion are welcome. Thank you!

WWII movie about blowing up a dam

This movie is in color and in American English. It is probably from around the mid 60’s, but that is a guess. It takes place during WWII.

The plot of this movie is that an elite group of allied soldiers–probably English and American, although one of the Americans speaks German fluently–are assembled to sneak into Nazi territory and blow up a dam. There are probably about half a dozen soldiers, who are probably all white, but one might be a black man. They are somewhat aided (when in Nazi territory) by a very tough, beautiful white woman with dark hair who carries a really long rifle.

The Nazis are building some powerful, secret weapon in a cave (or mine? someplace underground-ish) that has a lab with shiny equipment and scientists who are mostly begrudgingly cooperating with the Nazis. They are not all “loyal” Nazis, but the Nazis have taken their families to “keep them safe” so they feel compelled to help create the weapon. Some of the scientists might even be Jewish people who are being forced to cooperate as well.

The idea is that the allied soldiers will blow up a certain dam, which will cause the valley with the cavelab in it to flood, thus destroying the secret weapon and all the Nazis and scientists involved. The woman who is helping them wants to try to warn some of the scientists so they can try to get away before the valley floods. Technically the soldiers’ orders do not allow for such a warning, but some of them have moral qualms about the situation with the scientists who aren’t really Nazis, so there is strife within the group.

I don’t know how this movie ends, but my guess is the Nazis lose.

This movie was probably released in the theaters, but was shown on TV (in America) once or twice in the mid to late 70s. I don’t know who any of the actors are. All I can say is that the woman looks a bit like Sophia Loren, but is definitely not Sophia Loren.

Thank you for any help you can give. I welcome all suggestions.

Looking for movie about an indentured servant in Colonial America

I am hoping to find the name of a movie about an indentured servant. It is set in colonial America. It was on television in the early 80’s and may have been a made-for-tv movie. It was probably made in the late 70’s or very early 80’s. It’s possible it was made earlier than that, but certainly not after the mid 80’s.

The servant is a young white man with about shoulder length dark hair that he sometimes wore in a low ponytail (like Ben Franklin). I think he wore a loose white shirt and dark pants throughout the movie, sometimes with a dark coat on. The actor looked a little like Kit Harrington (Jon Snow on Game of Thrones) but was always kind of dirty.

He is working on a farm that is owned by a cruel man. There are other servants on the farm, and they seem too shy or scared to befriend him.

One scene that stands out is when he is milking a cow, he squirts a few streams of milk into his mouth. A woman servant sees him do this and reports him to the farmer. This is considered stealing and for it he is whipped with a rope with knots in it. There are close ups where he is unbuttoning/untying his shirt contrasted with someone tying knots in the rope in preparation for this.

Later in the movie, he is so unhappy he runs away and lives in the forest. I think a young boy finds him there and helps him live. The farmer considers him dead and sells his indenturment to another man–perhaps the young boy’s grandfather? When the servant learns of this he returns to finish his servitude.

I welcome any suggestions or hints people have! Thank you!

Male little person falls in love with red-headed woman

I hope someone can help me track down this movie. I may have some details mixed up, or combined with another drama, so if you have any suggestions at all, please share them.

There is a Caucasian man, who is a little person, who is successful in his working life but is lonely in his private life. He may be a writer or editor, or some such professional. I think part of the plot is that he might have trouble making friends because some people are prejudiced against his size. Sometimes he abuses alcohol because of this. He re-connects with a woman he knew when he was a child, even though she used to tease him back when they were children. They become friends and eventually fall in love. She is a regular height woman, also Caucasian, slim and with red hair. In the last scene of the movie, they are dancing on a balcony or rooftop and she is wearing a white dress. Maybe it’s their wedding?

I have been through the filmographies of all the male Caucasian little people actors I can think of with no luck. My Googlefu has failed me as well. If you have any ideas at all, no matter how far fetched, please share them. Thank you in advance for any suggestions you may have.

Indentured Servant

I am hoping to find the name of a movie about an indentured servant. It is set in colonial America. It was on television in the early 80’s and may have been a made-for-tv movie. It was probably made in the late 70’s or very early 80’s.

The servant is a young white man with about shoulder length dark hair that he sometimes wore in a low ponytail (like Ben Franklin). I think he wore a loose white shirt and dark pants throughout the movie, sometimes with a dark coat on. He is working on a farm that is run by a cruel man.

One scene that stands out is when he is milking a cow, he squirts a few streams of milk into his mouth. A woman sees him do this and reports him to the farmer. This is considered stealing and for it he is whipped with a rope with knots in it.

Later in the movie he runs away and lives in the forest. I think a young boy finds him there and helps him live. The farmer considers him dead and sells his indenturment to another man–perhaps the young boy’s grandfather? When the servant learns of this he returns to finish his servitude.

I welcome any suggestions or hints people have! Thank you!