Word: trapdoors
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1920-1929
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Police searched the Dane house. It was a residential fortress. Its arsenal contained two machine guns, numerous rifles, automatics, tear gas bombs, bottles of nitroglycerin. A trapdoor under a rug led to a hidden room with an emergency exit. In a closet were found bonds worth $319,850, part of which were identified as loot from a recent Jefferson, Wis., bank robbery. Questioning "Mrs. Dane," officers learned that Dane was none other than Fred Burke, alias Thomas Brook, alias "Cornbread" Burchell, alias Camp, Kemp, Kemper, deadliest of Alphonse ("Scarface Al") Capone's Chicago gangsters...
...copies of Everyman closed their books, listened to the opening of the Deity's speech. When it was finished they turned to an outdoor stage and saw enacted the rest of the 16th century morality play. There were screams of mock-horror when the Devil popped from a trapdoor, careened fiendishly over the stage, diabolically swished a crimson tail. Then the audience commented on the beauty of the setting when, as the Cathedral in the background was streaked with soft shadows, Everyman prepared to climb into his grave, pathetically imploring...
...celluloid spewed from the machine and lay curled on the floor. The butt of Operator Bazarnov's cigaret fell to the ground. In an instant the projector and the doorway were a mass of flames. Bazarnov, singed, fled for his life. A pitiful few escaped through a trapdoor to the floor below, but 120 were burnt alive. Wild-eyed peasants, unable to save their friends, rushed to the home of Sergius Wjarasmutkin. It was his factory, he must be to blame. Wjarasmutkin was beaten, stoned. At last the bleeding factory manager was thrown screaming into the blazing ruins...
...clutches at the fruit, rescuing the girl while she saves her own soul from the incubus of fear that has ridden her family. The tale is told with extraordinary vividness and pungency by King Vidor, a director who can evoke a heart-quaking spirit of mystery without a single trapdoor. Frank Mayo, Virginia Valli, Ford Sterling, Nigel de Brulier are splendid instruments in one of the exceptional pictures of the year. And a most extraordinary characterization is done by Charles A. Post as a modern Caliban, a hulking beast with a child's mind that wanted to be good...