Category: Crime

The Set-Up (1949)

Director: Robert Wise

Screenplay: Art Cohn based on the poem by Joseph Moncure March

Stars: Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter and George Tobias

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s make a boxing movie!”

Tagline: The Sensational Picture You’ve Been Hearing and Reading About!

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Bill “Stoker” Thompson (Ryan) is an over-the-hill fighter on the club circuit.  Although he still packs a punch, his best days are gone.  Stoker’s manager sets up a fixed fight with an up-and-coming prospect backed by the mob.  His manager is so sure that Stoker is going to lose, he doesn’t tell Stoker about the set-up.

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Too Late for Tears (1949)

Director: Byron Haskin

Screenplay: Roy Huggins

Stars: Lizabeth Scott, Don DeFore, Dan Duryea

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s make movie about a woman corrupted by money!”

Tagline: That’s just to remind you… you’re in a tough racket now!

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

When Jane and Alan Palmer accidentally come into possession of a satchel full of money things quickly go south.  Although they know it’s mob money, they can’t agree what to do with it.  Jane wants to keep it.  Alan wants to turn it over to the police.

Soon enough a rough character shows up wanting the money.  Jane is willingly to do anything to keep at least part of the cash… even if it means murder.  And it does.

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Faster (2010)

Director: George Tillman Jr.

Screenplay: Tony Gayton & Joe Gayton

Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Billy Bob Thornton, Maggie Grace, Tom Berenger, Carla Gugino and Mike Epps.

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s make a revenge flick with The Rock!”

Tagline: Justice is swift. Vengeance is faster.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Newly released, ex-con, Driver (Johnson) has one thing on his mind: to kill every one involved in the doublecross that left his brother murdered and him barely alive.  As the bodies pile up, a veteran cop and hired killer get closer and closer to finding Driver.  Will anyone get out of this alive?

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Scarlet Street (1945)

Director: Fritz Lang

Screenplay: Dudley Nichols

Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s make a really dark movie with Edward G. Robinson!”

Tagline: The things she does to men can end only one way – in murder!

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Chris Cross (Robinson) on the night of his retirement is feeling melancholy when he stops in a bar for a night cap.  Leaving his job of 25 years where he was surrounded by people who cared about him, Cross now faces a life with a mean wife who belittles him at every chance.  In the bar Cross meets and becomes enamored with Kitty March.

Cross makes her think he’s a wealthy artist.  She makes him think she’s a young girl in need of help (despite the fact that she’s a con woman being encouraged by her “boyfriend” to take him for everything she can).  Before it is over their lies will lead to murder — but whose?

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Harper (1966)

Director: Jack Smight

Screenplay: William Goldman based on the novel by Ross MacDonald

Stars: Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, Arthur Hill, Janet Leigh, Robert Wagner, Robert Webber, Shirley Winters and Strother Martin.

The Pitch: “Hey, get Paul Newman to play Ross MacDonald’s PI Harper!”

Tagline: This is a different kind of cat named Harper… and excitement clings to him like a dame!

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Private Eye, Lew Harper (Newman) is hired by the very wealthy, Mrs. Sampson (Bacall) to find her missing husband who is probably shacked up with some broad.  Harper starts digging and things change from a missing persons investigation to a multiple murder case with Harper on the killer’s list.

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Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Director: Edward Dmytryk

Screenplay: John Paxton based on the novel by Raymond Chandler

Stars: Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger and Mike Mazurki

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s turn Farewell, My Lovely into a movie!”

Tagline: An Original Philip Marlowe Mystery

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Private Eye, Phillip Marlowe (Powell) is convinced by Moose Malloy (Mazurki), a hulking, dense, ex-con to find his girl Velma.  Trouble is Velma hasn’t been seen for six years.  Marlowe’s digging puts him in the middle of bribery, theft and murder.

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The Blue Gardenia (1953)

Director: Fritz Lang

Screenplay: Charles Hoffman

Stars: Anne Baxter, Richard Conte, Ann Sothern, Raymond Burr, George Reeves and Nat “King” Cole

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s make a murder mystery with Anne Baxter!”

Tagline: There was nothing lily-white about her!

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Norah Larkin (Baxter) is on the rebound having just learned (on her birthday of all days!) that her fiance is leaving her for another woman.  When a man she just met offers to take her to dinner, she accepts.  He proceeds to get her drunk at his apartment and starts to take advantage of her.  When she attempts to leave, they struggle, she hits him with a poker and passes out as well.  She awakens to find him dead.  She quickly leaves believing she’s killed him.

Soon she is the subject of a police hunt… but what she really the murderess?

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Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

Director: John Sturges

Screenplay: Millard Kaufman

Stars: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan, Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin.

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s send a one-armed Spencer Tracey into a remote town that wants him dead!”

Tagline: Suddenly you realize murder is at your elbow! – and there’s no way out!

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

World War II veteran shows up in the remote town of Black Rock for unknown purposes.  The people of the town want him to move on and when he refuses, he puts his life at risk.  What are the town folk hiding?

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White Heat (1949)

Director: Raoul Walsh

Screenplay: Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts from a story by Virginia Kellogg

Stars: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo and Edmond O’Brien

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s get Cagney back as a gangster!”

Tagline: James Cagney Is Red Hot In “White Heat”!

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Psychotic and sadistic gang leader Cody Jarrett leads his gang on a crime frenzy.  When an undercover cop infiltrates the gang, it is just a matter of time until one of them is dead.

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Witness (1985)

Director: Peter Weir

Screenplay: Earl W. Wallace & William Kelley

Stars: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Lukas Haas, Alexander Godunov, Danny Glover and Viggo Mortensen.

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s have an Amish boy be a fish out of water in the big city – he’ll be the sole witness to a murder.  We’ll then send the big city cop to Amish country to protect the kid and he’ll be the stranger in a strange land! Let’s do it!”

Tagline: Harrison Ford is John Book – A big city cop who knows too much. His only evidence: a small boy who’s seen too much…

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Samuel, a small Amish boy in the big city for the first time, is the sole witness to a murder.  Detective John Book comes to realize that the murder Samuel witnessed is the key to a much bigger corruption.

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12 Angry Men (1957)

Director: Sidney Lumet

Screenplay: Reginald Rose

Stars: Martin Balsam, Lee J. Cobb Lee, E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Edward Binns, Jack Warden, Henry Fonda, Joseph Sweeney, Ed Begley, George Voskovec and Robert Webber.

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s turn ’12 Angry Men’ into a movie!”

Tagline: Life Is In Their Hands — Death Is On Their Minds!

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

A jury moves into the deliberation room to decide the fate of a young man accused of first degree murder.  It appears open and shut until one of the jurors demands that they discuss the case and introduces a small reason for doubt.  Tensions mount as the jurors decide the fate of a man’s life.

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