Hat Box Mystery / Hollywood Mystery (1947)

Hat Box Mystery (1947; B&W; 43 MINUTES): Private investigator Russ Ashton is called away on business, leaving his secretary Susan Hart in charge of his floundering detective agency. While he’s away, Susan takes an assignment from a man who wants photographic evidence of his wife’s infidelity. He gives her a hatbox that he has rigged with a "camera" inside. In reality, the hatbox contains a gun, and Susan unwittingly shoots the woman. Russ returns to find Susan in prison, and with no leads as to the culprit’s identity, sets out to dig up the truth and clear her name.

Hollywood Mystery (1934; B&W; 54 MINUTES): Fists and bullets fly when a dangerous scheme hatched by cocky Dan Ryan, a fast-talking Hollywood PR man, runs afoul of the mob. In an desparate effort to jump-start production of Supreme Pictures’ latest gangster film, The Racketeer, Ryan convinces director Sigfried Sonoff to cast an actual mobster in the lead role. He plans to fool Sonoff by hiring an unknown actor to pose as a real gangster. Ryan’s job gets complicated when the actor mistakenly punches out true-life mob boss Joe Romano. When revenge-driven Romano takes the star and the leading lady hostage, the make-believe world of The Racketeer suddenly becomes all too real.