On September 14, 1951, the front page of virtually every major newspaper in the United States carried the story of how B picture actor Tom Neal had brutally beaten dapper leading man Franchot Tone's face into a bloody pulp over the affections of sultry blonde actress Barbara Payton. The sordid narrative surrounding this ill-fated triangle would have "legs." Only Franchot Tone's career would survive the disgraceful events. Barbara Payton would soon descend into a desperate world of drugs and prostitution and, in the 1960s, Tom Neal would be prosecuted for first degree murder. B MOVIE...

With Boris Karloff having abandoned the genre for Broadway, the last of the cinema's great horror stars - Lon Chaney, Jr., Bela Lugosi and John Carradine - gathered together in 1956 to appear in what would be a final gesture to the classic fright films of the 1930s and 40s, a low budget effort, THE BLACK SLEEP. Between them, these three icons had played Count Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster, the Mummy and The Wolf Man, as well as a collection of mad scientists and their victims. Now, as this trio waits on the set to act out their brief, secondary roles, old resentments, personal...

Edward G. Robinson (LITTLE CAESAR) and George Raft (SCARFACE) were two of the screen's premier "tough guys." Aside from their movie personas, they had little else in common. Robinson was educated; a man of culture who collected fine art. Raft, who skipped school whenever possible, grew up on the streets of Hell's Kitchen. His interests were boxing, the racetrack, baseball and women. The actors only worked together twice. The first occasion was for the film MANPOWER (1941), and they did not get along. A scandalous photograph of their fistfight on the set appeared in newspapers throughout the...