Hello everyone and as always welcome. George Bernard Shaw once said "Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time" or one can even say.. "Life without chess would be pawn-derous". Which ever the case in today's movie aka Scared Stiff from 1945, we have Larry Elliot, a mild mannered newspaper reporter who specializes in the world chess but he also covers minor events. Larry's boss who just so happens to be his uncle, gives him an ultimatum. He has to start covering bigger stories. To start his uncle wants him to cover the harvest festival at Grape City. Yes, you read correctly Grape City, of course not to be confused with Grape Central. But that's not the case with Larry. Larry takes the assignment and brings his girlfriend Sally with him. Sally deals in antiques. While on the bus, the man sitting next to Larry does a Dustin Hoffman from Midnight Cowboy on him (too soon, nah) and is found with none other than a chess piece in his cold hand. Of course, there can be only one suspect. Boy, who knew chess could be so dangerous. I mean we have not only Larry and Sally but gangsters, more dead bodies, an insurance agent, twin brothers, a Kublai Khan missing chess set and you thought Marco Polo only brought back pasta and a swimming pool game. We have a lot going on in this movie. Staring in this we're not playing checkers here, we have...the Tin Man himself Jack Haley as Larry, the lovely Ann Savage as Sally, Barton MacLane as George "Deacon", Veda Ann Borg as Flo, Roger Pryor as Richardson, George E. Stone as Mink, Robert Emmett Keane as Prof. Wisner, Eily Malyon as Mrs. Cooke and a few more. So let's make some (The) Grandmaster cocktails, dust off the chess set you have in the closet and enjoy. Also thanks so much for watching
(No copyright infringement intended, this film is in the public domain. If Dailymotion wishes me to remove this film, I will. For entertainment purposes only)
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