# Old-fashioned Who-Dunnits, and really good Sci-Fi/Fantasy **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 11, 2020, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-who-dunnits-and-really-good-sci-fi-fantasy/851555 "2020-04-11T11:52:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-who-dunnits-and-really-good-sci-fi-fantasy/851555/61 "2020-05-03T03:22:12Z")
Haven’t seen these mentioned yet: **SF** _ **Destination Moon** _ (1950) Will “sinister forces” in Washington keep the United States from launching the first rocket to the Moon, where “each night is two weeks long”? _ **Silent Running** _ (1972) Bruce Dern with his adorable robots is the ultimate tree-hugger. The original _ **The Time Machine** _ (1960). The “atomic satellite” scared the crap out of six-year-old me. I really thought the world be destroyed before the decade was out. _ **Dark Star** _ (1974). John Carpenter’s first (student) movie. How do you disarm an anti-matter bomb? Teach it phenomenology, of course. Toe-tappin’ theme music, too! **WHODUNNIT/NOIR** _ **Double Indemnity** _ (1944) Never trust a hot woman who wears an anklet! _ **The Postman Always Rings Twice** _ (1946) Never trust a hot woman married to an older guy who owns a diner! _ **The Captive City** _ (1952) John “Bachelor Father/Blake Carrington” Forsythe as a crusading journalist fighting organized crime. _ **T-Men** _ (1947) Feds bust an international counterfeiting ring. Especially memorable for a hot young June Lockhart in a minor role, and the line “Have you ever spent twenty nights in a Turkish bath looking for a man?” ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-who-dunnits-and-really-good-sci-fi-fantasy/851555/62 "2020-05-03T03:34:32Z")
Oh, yeah: _ **Journey to the Seventh Planet** _ (1961) An international team of astronauts led by megastar John Agar finds Uranus is populated with hot Swedish babes. and _ **Zontar, the Thing from Venus** _ (1966) Agar again, at his finest! I especially like the part with The General and his jeep. 😃 How about \*\*\*Monster Zero \*\*\*(1965) Starring Nick “What have you done with our spaceship?” Adams as the token Caucasian astronaut. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-who-dunnits-and-really-good-sci-fi-fantasy/851555/63 "2020-05-03T17:40:46Z")
[The\_5,000\_Fingers\_of\_Dr.\_T.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_5,000_Fingers_of_Dr._T.) is a preposterous romp that could only have come from the mind of Dr. Seuss. It does have some scenes that drag on, but on the whole, it’s a very fun way to use up an hour and a half. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-who-dunnits-and-really-good-sci-fi-fantasy/851555/64 "2020-05-03T23:46:50Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Going to do a night of “fake apes,” including the original _Planet of the Apes_, and\* King Kong\*, as well as some things like a Ritz Bros. movie about a killer gorilla, and _Gorilla at Large_, because the boychik saw them when he was little-- he had a thing about movies with fake apes, and the faker the better. He thought \*Planet of the Apes \*was very funny. If you don’t mind watching a very bad movie, try **Robot Monster** , a 1953 SF film that had the subject Monster in a Gorilla Suit with a space helmet. Good for a “Mystery Science Theater” night… ---
**Author:** ![Boycott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boycott/32/6741_2.png) [@Boycott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boycott)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-who-dunnits-and-really-good-sci-fi-fantasy/851555/65 "2020-05-03T23:51:25Z")
I’ve been watching old fashioned who-dunnits from the black and white era in the last week. Plenty of good stuff on youtube from the 30s/40s/50s. My favorite is the 1935 version of The 39 Steps. The 1959 version in color is not bad either. This movie called The Ninth Guest from 1934 pre-dates Agatha Christie's And then there were none. Short, little basic (she developed the premise a lot more) but still enjoyable. Today I watched Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of A Doubt (1943) which is what he described as his best movie. I wouldn't go so far (the 1935 39 steps was his movie too) but still a good story of a small town average American family which turns out not to be average at all. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h08szD0wfbo) ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-who-dunnits-and-really-good-sci-fi-fantasy/851555/66 "2020-05-03T23:53:09Z")
For some fun old-fashioned whodunnits, try the 1975 Levinson/Link TV series **Ellery Queen,** starring Jim Hutton and Richard Wayne. Lots of cool guest stars — damn, _everybody_ was still alive in the ‘70s — and completely retro mystery plots, including Ellery breaking the fourth wall at the 55 minute mark in every episode to announce to the viewers that HE had solved the murder…how about YOU? Remember the messenger boy had a mustache…and that the telephone receiver was found in the laundry basket…and the goose had been cooked? Huh? HUH? ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-who-dunnits-and-really-good-sci-fi-fantasy/851555/67 "2020-05-03T23:57:21Z")
Jim Hutton’s son, Timothy, was responsible for the Nero Wolfe teevee series, much of which can be watched for free on YouTube. Timmy did a bang up job with these, although they are…like the source material…more dependent for their pleasure on characterization rather than throwback whodunnit cliche. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-who-dunnits-and-really-good-sci-fi-fantasy/851555/68 "2020-05-04T00:23:44Z")
Has anyone mentioned Hitchcock’s _ **Rear Window** _ yet? ---
**Author:** ![Julius\_Henry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8797f3/32.png) [@Julius\_Henry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Julius_Henry)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2020, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-who-dunnits-and-really-good-sci-fi-fantasy/851555/69 "2020-05-04T01:40:39Z")
Looking for old-fashioned mysteries, doesn’t care what era and nobody has mention _ **The Maltese Falcon** _. What’s happened to this board??? ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2020, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-who-dunnits-and-really-good-sci-fi-fantasy/851555/70 "2020-05-05T10:33:16Z")
> [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](#): > > If you don’t mind watching a very bad movie, try **Robot Monster** , a 1953 SF film that had the subject Monster in a Gorilla Suit with a space helmet. Good for a “Mystery Science Theater” night… Owned a VHS of that, with the 3D intact. Came with two pairs of glasses, but I already had my own. > [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > For some fun old-fashioned whodunnits, try the 1975 Levinson/Link TV series **Ellery Queen,** starring Jim Hutton and Richard Wayne. I borrowed that from Netflix about 11 years ago when I had a toddler. I actually am old enough to remember watching it when it was new, but I remembered only maybe three solutions from seeing it originally. (The colorblind one, and the Morganstern one, the latter, because my mother actually figured that one out in real time during the original run. At least one other, that eludes me now.) So really, it was like watching it fresh. I remember when it got cancelled in 1975 or 76, and there were petitions going around to save it. People who mailed them to the studio got polite letters that the decision had been made, and actors and other people already released from their contracts. Thanks everybody, for all the suggestions. Most of them are familiar to me-- I guess I should have asked for suggestions of OBSCURE films. See the Bogart _Maltese Falcon_ many times, and the earlier one as well, and read the book when I was 12. However, they did suggest things to show to the boychik for the first time. And I don’t think he has seen _Rear Window_! nor _Vertigo_. --Oh, and I’ve seen \*Green for Danger \*several times (great film!) but again, the boychik loved it. And I am loving finding out how much he likes the same films I loved at 13. Really grateful to the poster who suggested _The Winslow Boy_. Never heard of that one before. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-who-dunnits-and-really-good-sci-fi-fantasy/851555.md?page=3)